Coffee, Keyboard And Bible

I am nearly caught up with Father Mike's Bible In A Year podcast. If you haven't started it, I highly recommend it. First, it's Father Mike, who can bring a smile to your face with his high-energy, chirpy personality. I've read the Bible and lots of theology, but this one is changing my life by changing my view of the world.

This is a hard one to write as my thoughts are incoherent, but we'll give it a go. It's 0545 and I've got my coffee. There will never be a better time to see if I can make sense of what's happening inside. My hope is that it will inspire you to give it a try, even if you're not a believer. The Bible is the most influential book ever written, so it's probably worth a 20 minute daily podcast.

On with the show.

We went to Good Friday service yesterday. I saw it in a completely new way. Having heard and now better understood the covenant God made with the Jews, I saw the sacrifice of Christ crucified and it's covenant with me in a deeper context. The crucifixion was His covenant with me, personally. Just as the Jews were supposed to hold up their end of the bargain, I'm supposed to hold up mine.

KT's Answer To The Question, "What Is Life?"

Life is an adventure story. You're the hero or heroine and the plot is your effort to do God's will throughout your time on Earth. The world is your antagonist, particularly beer and the desire to argue. Well, maybe it's different for you, but those are two big 'uns for me. Also, I have a slight hangover right now.

The world tries to convince you that the plot is you trying to amass money and toys, have maximal orgasms as often as possible, achieve success through your children's lives or dominate those around you, but that's all false. Each one of those goals has good within it, but your real goal is to serve others, fighting those temptations.

Hence, my affection for the generals.

Anecdote: I work full time so wife kitteh can do as she pleases. Our marriage is within that covenant* and part of her adventure story is to work on the parish food distribution program. 

Anywho, earlier this week, she was in the parish offices when she came across a young man waiting to see Father E. By his tats, he was clearly a gang banger. She talked to him and found that he was having serious health issues and had come in to get right with God. He also told her that he couldn't make his rent payment and was hoping the parish might help.

Wife kitteh took some of my paycheck and paid his rent. She also prayed with him.

And that, boys and girls, is part of our end of the covenant.

What About Those Nutty Jewish Laws?

Bible In A Year taught me that all those crazy regulations about sacrificing stuff to God were illustrative rules given to a pack of savages that they might begin the world's cultural evolution to our understanding of what is good and right here and now. For me, the Catechism is the codification of our current knowledge of the world.

Bible In A Year is showing me that way back when, the aborigines of Israel needed a concrete and sacrificial framework to wrap their dirty hands around the point of their adventure stories. Now, we have a subtler sacrificial framework, but it's still the same idea - how to give of yourself as you recognize and do God's will.

I'll stop here as I'm mentally twigging into incoherence. Comments are welcome.

OK, OK, Father Mike, I'll keep working on it! Sheesh!

* - My relationships as expressions of my covenant with God occurred to me yesterday in church, but only because of Father Mike's podcast. I told you it change my thinking.