Saturday, September 17, 2005

After Shiloh, We Never Smiled




Alas, there is hope....recently I celebrated my 40th year on this earth. An event celebrated by some and almost wholly ignored by its benefacter.

The Zumbudu continues to read "The Bondage of the Will". Indeed it does appear that modern Protestants have lost their grasp of Christian Doctrine through lack of knowledge and instead chase after the latest "movement" or self ascribed prophet that comes along. It has been my own experience that it was only enough to seek the emotional experience of Salvation. What then when the emotions ebb? It is only seven days to the next Sunday or even a Wednesday service to see you through. Without a foundation of doctrine or knowledge of the Gospel and how it came to us can a Christian know who he his and where he stands before God.

It is not my assertion that Christ's fulfillment is lacking, that is certainly not true. I do maintain that a knowledge of how the Gospel came to us and of those who went before needs to be attained by those who God's Grace has allowed to be his children.

Monday, September 12, 2005

From the Journal of the Princess....

This from a recent entry from my daughter's school Journal.....

The question,
Education is important because....Explain why education is important.

The answer,
What is a education because I never heard that word before I think I heard that word before. I always have to ask what that means.


Simple, yet profound.

The Zumbudu Reads....

"The Bondage of the Will" by Martin Luther. Just wading through the introduction so far. Apparently a treatise written by Luther in response to Erasmus' letter against Luther's activities. I wonder why no one writes like this anymore. Maybe I'll start using the same kind of language and by example change the way everyone speaks...Wouldn't that be something?

More to follow as I continue wading....

There But for the Grace of God Go I


These words first spoken by the martyr John Bradford in 1555. I had first heard these words when they were spoken by my mother. She had seen a lone hitch-hiker at a gas station in our little home town of Lordsburg in the northern part of the Sonoran desert. That hitch-hiker had the look of being on the road for several days and was now 150 miles from the next city looking for a ride, a lonelier situation would be hard to imagine.

Those words meaning were lost to me at the time (I was 13). Now (almost 40) their meaning has become clear when in my own experience I saw an example of what my mother saw so many years ago. It is God's Grace that keeps us just one step away from disaster, having been on both sides I can see how little of a distance it is to travel there.

Is it to be said then about those who are less fortunate have been removed from God's Grace? I think not but only that His Grace is magnified by such.