The hard questions

I was this close to quitting this blog a few moments ago for any number of reasons. Lack of readership no matter what I've done to promote this thing. Unhappiness with what I'm seeing out there in our country. Not feeling all that spiffy. On and on and on we go.

Then my pay-attention-meter went off, and I began to think about the past couple of days.

First, we buried a good man in Vidalia, La. Mary's step-father, Robert, was one of the good ones, and we laid him to rest after a long bout with difficulty breathing and such. A terrible way to go, actually. I saw my own mortality in what he went though, again. And while I was there, the country swung left again in its voting preference.

Then last night at our youth session, Club 316, our wonderful leader Dwight Jodon was going through the meaning of the Apostle's Creed, pretty much line by line, with 46 youth. Somehow we opened the floor to questions.
There were three. Is there anything God can't forgive? What about suicide? Is being gay a sin?

Youth don't fool around. They ask the questions, the hard questions, that the church is going to have to deal with over time. The answers Dwight and I gave aren't as important as noticing the questions, I think. We said the only thing God can't forgive is for you to not believe Jesus was the Son of God who came to save you; that forgiveness must include suicide, but ultimately that's between God and the person in pain; that too is between God and the person.

Then a got a call from a gentleman who wanted me to do something. He said there were 10 businesses in our little town that were not using Merry Christmas in their advertising, instead using happy Holidays. He wanted churches in this town to take this on, having each church mail 10 Christmas Cards each to the ones not doing things right. That'll show them, I might have heard him say.

Let me say this. I don't actually disagree with that he wants, but I don't think Jesus would have taken these types of things on. Isn't there something out there greater than what we call a holiday we made up to honor the birth of our King? Can't we give at shelters or feed the hungry or help the poor or any number of a 1,000 gifts at Christmas that would have more meaning?

We've got to reach a stage where we're talking about the difficult questions and we must stop letting little things get in our way.

If 25 readers a day is all I can muster for these thoughts, I guess I will keep doing this. As long as I have something to say.