Clearing Out The Clutter

Paul pointedly asked, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor. 6:19)—which makes me wonder if God often feels like He is living in our messy garage.

Some years ago, a charity touched my heart and I felt led to donate to it. The problem was, there was no extra money in the budget. Inspired by the homeless people I'd seen scouring the trash cans for pop bottles to return for the ten cent deposit, I decided to scour our garage.

I found a goodly amount in the recycle can, but I knew there had to be more. Indeed there were. I searched every inch of the garage, crawling into icky spider-web ridden corners, moved snow blowers, stretched my arms to their limits behind boxes of assorted junk and generally worked hard to retrieve every can I could find. The result wasn't some huge sum of money. It did, though, give me an appreciation of the people who struggle to live on the money they can find in trash cans.

Lately, I have this feeling that I need to do this same sort of scouring, with respect to my life, when it comes to the negative effects of the past. I need to find those things that are holding me back and do battle with them. I have no illusions that this will be an immediate or short-lived thing, but I'm tired of letting it hold me back.

It's funny, just six months ago, the idea of "getting better" was a scary thought. Now the idea of not being "sick" isn't nearly as scary. I certainly retains some of its scariness, but it's also exciting.

"And Every Virtue We Possess"

Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away.

I've never heard anyone put this process so very well. Wither away they did and in an awfully painful way. My pride held on much too long, but God was faithful to rid me of what was holding me back even when it meant having to face a harsh reality.

It's taken a long time for me to appreciate the growth that took place those long years ago. The result is wonderful, though I couldn't begin to see even a glimpse of wonder while I was going through it.

Forgiveness Without Repentance?

This is likely a repeat for me, but often I need a reminder. Like many Christians, I've heard countless messages about forgiveness. Some pastors contend that forgiveness is as much for us as it is for the one who wronged us. We feel better if we forgive regardless of what the other person does, and it allows us to go on with our life. Others say that because God forgives us, we must forgive others irrespective of whether the other person is sorry. It took years for me to find a reputable organization that shared my view:

Unconditional forgiveness is canceling a debt to all those who intentionally offend us, whether or not they own up to what they have done. Offering forgiveness without repentance, however, does not follow the biblical model of forgiveness (Luke 17:3,4).

I yelled aloud when I first read this. Someone else *does* get it. God forgives us when we repent -- why would he set an example and then expect us to do something entirely different? The logical answer is (and, for all Christianity's detractors, I contend Christianity is ultimately logical), He doesn't. In the same way God doesn't willy-nilly forgive us our sins, we're not expected to do the same for those who wrong us.

I find this particularly important when considering narcissists. Because a narcissist is never truly sorry they wronged someone, only sorry they were caught, forgiveness doesn't enter the picture. This is why, too, forgiveness *is* conditional on repentance. Repentance doesn't simply mean one verbalizes (or writes) an apology, it means the person agrees that the action was wrong with no qualifications or excuses, decides to rectify whatever they can, and then doesn't do it again.

Once I received a letter from a narcissist that said, roughly, "I've forgiven you for what you've done. Let's see if you can do the same." Beyond the fact that I have no idea what I did, and therefore can't repent of it, the other person doesn't doesn't offer an apology, and in fact, uses the issue of forgiveness to manipulate. When I think I've been too hard on this person, I go back and reread this letter. The letter, a representative example of communications with this person, helps me remember.

Forgiveness is a good thing. Without it, life would be a pointless exercise in physics, chemistry and biology. Forgiveness is also a valuable thing, much too valuable to be thrown around as a freebie. My forgiveness cost Jesus his life. His sacrifice on my behalf should serve as a reminder of just how precious forgiveness is.

Raised By Wolv.., Uh, Cats

Part of the process of coming to terms with the odditiy of my childhood family is finding new understanding of situations and events. It's a freeing process if not always comfortable.

Because the behaviour of people was not always predictable my understanding of people is far from ideal. My understanding of cat behaviour, however, is extensive. Cats were predictable. I could count on the reaction of a cat if I petted it, or fed it, or if it fell into the tub where I was bathing. Cats didn't strike out for no apparent reason. If a cat was aggressive, I could always find a good reason. They had times they wanted to be alone and times when they wanted attention. Cats have good boundaries. If they don't want something, they're not shy about it. Unlike people, with cats I'm comfortable.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there have been two cats I couldn't befriend. One was a friend's pet who fought with things that weren't there and obviously had a mental impairment. She was a unique cat, special in her own way. The other was a kitten born to one of our cats. This kitten was different from all the others in the litter. It never wanted any contact with other cats or humans. It was almost as if it was born feral.

So now I understand why my feline friends have been so precious to me. They were the only living beings in my household that made sense. It explains, too, why losing them saddens me so, whereas losing my parents has/does not. To my feline friends, now long gone, who helped me keep my sanity, I owe you more love and thanks than I can ever hope to repay to your kind. I'll still keep trying though, one scritch, one catnip ball at a time.

Secret child had divided Covina gunman and his wife

Scary. I mean really scary. As more and more details come out about this guy, how he methodically planned and used technical knowledge to carry out this thing, including the release of gas reminds me far too much of my father. The Santa suit, booby trapping the car and suit, it's all eerily within what I grew up to consider "normal". Even his lawyers description of him as a calm guy who gave no indication of what he was planning, is all too familiar. It gives me an appreciation of what my mother may have faced if she ever considered leaving him. No one outside our house would have believed what he was capable of.

For me, the most interesting thing is this killer blew it. He'd planned on fleeing the country, securing air tickets to Canada and wrapping a large amount of cash to his leg. The suicide was a fallback position. We'll likely never know, but my guess is he was overconfident and he made a literally fatal mistake.

OK, so I don't know this guy from Adam. It just feels like I do. My prayers go out to the family who discovered too late, and in the most heinous way, of what he was capable.