I wonder if the parable of the bridesmaids is almost wishful thinking on the part of Jesus. None of his own followers were exactly waiting for him to show up. None were buying extra lamp oil because he was late. He wasn’t expected at all.
Today, would being told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ really be a blessing?
Like a rich dessert, I find it helpful to take the Old and New Testament in small bites.
After seeing the ‘Dunkirk’, I stumbled upon the saying: Failure isn’t fatal and success isn’t final. Which seemed to encapsulate the feeling that the movie had evoked.
It is tempting when in proximity to power to become wrapped up in it, to see that power as the only way to achieve one’s ends and to accept the idea that to have access to that power one must curry favor.
It is an easy thing look back at moments in history and say ‘I would never have done that.’ I would never have: owned people as slaves, driven indigenous people from their land, paid unfair wages, watched as neighbors were loaded in to trains to death camps, bought land and possessions dirt cheap from people forced to sell because the government decided they were the enemy based on fear rather than evidence.
I think that on-going choice to confront suffering, to call it out and say that not all suffering is inevitable, some is a product of our social structures is what is meant when 1 Peter talks about it being better to suffer for doing good.
It is the ‘Blessed is…takes no offense’ structure of the verse that perplexes me. I am blessed if I take no offense in what Jesus says and does?
I’ve written before about the importance of imperfection. Lately I’ve been thinking about it more and more. Tonight I was watching a video on how
Once I finally realize that all the splinters I am seeing are really my log it becomes easier (but not necessarily less painful) to pull it out and put it in it’s place.