Category: Christianity
A Door Called Aldersgate
I get John Wesley. Before he became the guy who said, “I look upon all the world as my parish”* he preferred his parochial, amicable studies and libraries rather than the great halls. He was a cave-dweller. Ministerially, he was a good Oxfordite, a proper Anglican priest, who toed the party line and desired things be done decently and with order. He had some OCD in him, I’d wager. In short, he went with the program.
I do like my cave, but, granted, that last bit is quite unlike me. I have Baptistic roots but there are doors closed to me because of my ‘aberrant’ theology, and, likewise, I have not found a home among their polar opposites (I’m too Baptist I’m told). Ah, well, such is life. My wife quipped a few years ago that if I were the type of person to “play the game”, I would be set for life with meetings and denominational appointments. She followed that up by saying, “I respect you more because you don’t.”
She so completes me.
John-surnamed-Wesley was a fussy dresser, I’m told, always neat and fashionable without being conspicuous, starched to the gills and spotless. Hands soft and manicured, Wesley’s skin was probably sallowed from dwelling indoors by candle’s glow. Continue reading A Door Called Aldersgate
How Lame
If I were alive in, say, 1611, I would bear the label “lame.” Today we describe things that are lacking or unsatisfactory as “lame.”
“That show was lame.”
“The 80’s were so lame.”
Far, far back before English translators took a stab at the Greek, the word could mean anything from ‘lacking a foot’ to ‘limping around’. As I said, if I was in the time of donning powdered wigs and sporting knickers and hose, my English peers would point at me and say, “He doth be so lame-eth.” But I am not hobbling around on a weak leg nor am I missing a foot. My legs and feet are fully intact, but they are ‘useless’ per se. They appear to have life but they are unresponsive to the command of the “head”.
See where I am going with this?
When our First Parents skipped around the Garden naked and unashamed, they had face to face communion with the Lord. They had really cool talks about life, history and destiny with pre-incarnate Jesus in the cool of the day. There was no veil. No disconnect. All the heavenlies were opened to their adoring eyes. Continue reading How Lame