God's Just Judgment

"The presupposition of God's just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West... Soon you will discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die."

~Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. 302-304

Ultimate Presupposition

"Lord" in Scripture refers to the head of a covenant relationship. In that relationship, the Lord dictates to his covenant servants the way they are to live and promises them blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. He also tells them of the blessings that he has already given to them– his "unmerited favor," or grace, which is to motivate their obedience. Without words of grace, law, and promise, there is no lordship. To recognize the Lord is to believe and obey his words above the words of anyone else. And to obey the Lord's words in that way is to accept them as one's ultimate presupposition.

~John Frame, Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Beliefs, p. 4

My Return?

I must be in a nostalgic frame of mind. Just now, as I climbed the stairs and headed to bed, a whiff of something made me think of Strawberry Shortcake, the dolls my sister and I played with as little girls. I'm certain if I mentioned to Erin (my sister) that smell, she'd immediately be swept back in time as well. How powerful these memories are, and the hold they have on us for the rest of our lives.

A couple of days ago I thought about starting to post on here again. There was once a time when I wrote on here nearly every day, and then it dwindled to maybe monthly, and then, to my shame, I abandoned it completely. It takes time to blog, especially if you add pictures which you've enhanced in Photoshop yourself, and who reads it anyway? Blogs are passé, no? Does anyone use blogspot anymore? Should I have moved to Wordpress years ago? Does it even matter at this point? We've all moved on to YouTube anyway, and I, like a silent film actress, feel ill-prepared for the new media. But, here I am, feeling a certain nostalgia for days gone by and not quite ready to let the thing completely die. Dum Spiro Spero has been here for me so long– in March it was nine years, and I started the blog (have I admitted this out loud here before?) as a way to help mend my broken heart, or at least to provide a distraction from the pain I was feeling in connection to a breakup from a certain boy. I suppose it did that, and more, as I've loosely documented the passing years here.

Tonight I reread my "About Me" post. Was it prophetic? Did I realize when I wrote all those years ago that it would still ring true now, these many years in the future? And will it still be true years from now? Will I still be dreaming of the same things? I like what I wrote then– four sentences to summarize me, and I look at them now and I still think they were well written, and they're just as true as the day I wrote them.

When I first started this blog, I would quote bits of poems, and prose that I liked. There's one that I quoted ages ago that continues to loom in my mind and I keep trying to reference it as it seems so true. I'm quoting it here so that I can find it again when I want it.

To me it seems a very terrible thing to be a woman.  There is one crown which perhaps is worth it all-- a great love, a quiet home, and children.   We all know that is all that is worthwhile, and we must peg away, showing off our wares in the market if we have money, or manufacturing careers for ourselves if we haven't.  We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a 'lifework' of teaching, of social work-- we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man.  And all the time in the background of our consciousness rings the warning that perhaps the right man will never come.  A great love is given to very few.  Perhaps this makeshift time-filler of a job is our lifework after all. 

~Ruth Benedict, Anthropologist, 1912

Months ago, when Donald Trump won the election to become the 45th President of the United States, I cheekily posted on Facebook that in the wake Carla Bruni (wife to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy) and Melania Trump (both former models), I had a new aspiration, i.e., to be a first lady. My feminist friends responded and asked why I wasn't aspiring to be President, to which I refer them to the quote above. Nope, thank you very much, I want to be a wife and a mother. I am sorry if that is not ambitious enough for you.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my first blog post back after five months of non-posting.