Weekly e-News October 23
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having the awesomest, thankfulliest, praisiest day ever! (“…thankfulliest”?)
I always hope this for all in our Triple C family and for all my friends around the wide world!
However…
I always write this weekly CCC email bloggy-thing every Friday and I never hear from anyone who might read it. I don’t really know if anyone ever does reads it! I mean, I read it, of course. And Tina always does. Well, actually, she listens to it ‘cause I always read it to her when I’m done to makes sure it’s not totally ridiculous. Beyond that, I have no idea. Maybe it’s just the two of us.
I always try in everything I do to keep my own personal opinions out of stuff. Whether trying to encourage folks or share from God’s Word, it seems to me that nothing could matter less than my opinion about things! Saying my opinion is just not appropriate or indicated!
But I thought…
Maybe that’s a good way to see if anyone reads this thing!
Let my opinions FLYYYYY! And see if anyone cares! See if anyone’s out there!
So, here goes! Here come some of my opinions!!
In my opinion, even tho’ scholars and cultured folks a lot smarter than me think that the artwork of Picasso is awesome and amazing, I don’t like it. In my opinion, it isn’t very good.
In my opinion, if the Atlanta Braves hadn’t sold Jason Heyward, Brian McCain, Justin Upton, Martin Prado, Evan Gattis, and Craig Kimbrel, we’d be in the World Series next week.
In my opinion, the commercialization of country music is pushing it into becoming just another kind of pop music. In my opinion, George, Tammy, and Loretta were better.
In my opinion, there are some things in the Catholic faith that I wish evangelicals had, also.
In my opinion, when your server asks you how everything tastes, it’s kind of a personal question and it’s a little awkward.
In my opinion, having a dog (a really chill one!) is a cooler thing than I used to think it was.
In my opinion, the Rocky Mountains are amazing, but I like the Smokies better.
In my opinion, any pizza you eat in Italy is better than any you can find here, including the ones at “Big You-know-who’s”.
In my opinion, the fight (which was still in the Tennessee news this week) to defend the right to display, fly or wear the Confederate flag is unbelievably unkind.
The reason this contention exists today is because in June of this year in Charleston…
…a city where, even though through its ports as many as 10,000,000 abducted and chained Africans entered America and into a life of enslavement, that flag still flew even this year at the South Carolina capital building…
…in that city, nine of our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus died while worshiping our Lord in their church.
For the person who did it, as well as for most African Americans, so many of whom are our brothers and sisters in the family of Jesus, this flag is a symbol of racism and hate. I guess I could understand how some might have some kind of sentimental feelings of nostalgic attachment or “heritage”…
But for a person who believes in Jesus Christ…
for a person bought by the blood of the King of love…
for a person adopted by the God Who is Love, into a vast and multitudinous multiracial family of brothers and sisters of all ethnicities, nations, colors and tongues, who are closer to us than our own biological family (if they know not our Savior), and with whom we will spend forever worshiping and praising before the Throne of Reconciling Love…
for a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit of Love, Who is constantly infusing His love into our hearts (Rom. 5:5), always reassuring us of His love and relentlessly compelling us to love everyone…
For THAT person…
knowing that, whatever else it may or may not have meant to someone or their ancestors back in history somewhere, any meaningless symbol that, in the present, might even faintly suggest a message of animosity or hate to ANYONE I am called to love, care about, care for, or possibly reach for Jesus, the King of Love, would be a thing that in the Name of Jesus, I would flee like the plague itself (1 Cor. 9:19)…
and knowing that, in all questions, the supreme arbitrating factor is love (“Which choice is the most loving?”), since love is the fulfillment of all of the commandments of God, the perfect expression of holiness (Romans 13:9-10)…
and knowing that my remaining, outstanding debt that I owe to everyone is the debt to love them (Romans 13:8)…
…at this point, anyone who is a child of our God of love, who even contemplates wearing, caring for, caring about, or flying that symbol from a home, truck or government building is beyond my ability to imagine.
That’s my opinion.
(Maybe I’ll found out this week if anyone reads this.)