Our actions in and reactions to the quotidian life are far better indicators of our philosophical and theological tenets than any creeds we confess or theological systems we espouse.

One of the things that has become clearer to me over this summer is the fact that each of us is always declaring some gospel - with our words, with our actions, with our tone of voice, etc… Whenever we interpret (to ourselves or to others) the significance of the circumstances of life (our personal lives, politics, relationships, etc.) and set a value on those circumstances (”good”, “bad”, “hopeful”, “hopeless”) we are locating those circumstances within a larger narrative - a big picture story of how we understand life in general and our own lives in particular.

For instance, if Laura and I come home from the grocery store and she runs in the house carrying one little bag and leaves me to carry in the rest, and then on the way up the stairs I badly stub my toe and trip and spill all the groceries I am carrying down the stairs, I am now presented with a set of life circumstances which I now have to (and will) interpret, and I will most likely proclaim my interpretation of these circumstances right then and there. If I am angry it is because I have opted for a particular interpretation of the events, not because I have simply responded to circumstances in the only way conceivable. From one perspective, my plight is morally neutral - you could say that nothing more is involved than bodies and matter in motion, and such things merit neither a positive or negative response. But as Cornelius Van Til has helpfully pointed out, for us, there are no “brute facts” - all facts must be and are interpreted in some way.

So then, why do I choose anger as the “appropriate response”? The answer to that question will extend far into the way I understand thing like the meaning of life, God’s sovereignty and attitude toward me, what people are for, justice and fairness, and so on. Likewise, my response to these circumstances will proclaim or “preach” the answer to these questions to myself and to those around me. If I let loose a string of profanity and complain to Laura that she hasn’t helped me like she should, or if I just quietly pick up the mess and am cold to her for the next couple of hours, I have just declared to her and myself what I believe to be the significance of what has just happened in the grand scheme of things.

The painful conviction that has struck me more and more is that the “gospel” I preach to Laura and to my friends and family by the way that I choose to interpret and respond to the circumstances of life is usually either the antithesis of the real gospel or some deceptive and twisted perversion of that gospel. I am rightly (albeit insufficiently) ashamed of this fact and brought once more to the place where I must say, “I am way worse than I thought, and way more in need of God’s grace and help to change than I thought”. Praise God for his merciful provision through Jesus Christ, who not only freed me from the eternal consequences of my sin, but has also set his Holy Spirit to the work of transforming me to the likeness of his Son!

Sometimes little offhand remarks that someone makes can have a really big impact on you. A friend of ours who seems to always have witty little quips on the tip of his tongue made the following remark after talking about some recent financial difficulties, “I guess if that’s how God wants to spend his money then that’s ok.” So simple and obvious, but we’ve been meditating on it for a while now and been really encouraged by it in the midst of a lot of struggles. We’ve applied it to all sorts of different situations. After one seeming time waste after another, we’ve been saying, “If that’s how God wants to spend his time, I guess that’s ok.”

Thanks for choosing your words carefully Alasdair.

The shattering revelation of that moment was that true peace, the high and bidding peace that passeth all understanding, is not to be had in retreat from the battle, but only in the thick of the battle. To journey for the sake of our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake - even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death - that little by little we start to come alive.

- Frederick Buechner, upon hearing bad news from a friend

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

- R.D. Laing

I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now - only that place where the books are kept.

- John Steinbeck

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

- Immanuel Kant

It is impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.

- Mignon McLaughlin

You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.

- Rwandan Proverb

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

- Francis Bacon

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.

- Yiddish Proverb

What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.

- Jewish proverb

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.

- Christopher Morley

10/29/99, 3:45 AM:

It would be better to spend one’s entire life in preparation for one great work than to spend it frittering away one’s days in pursuit of trivialities.