Jack Heald

This school year I am involved with teaching the yewts at our church during Sunday mornings. The older I get, the less I know that I know, but the few things I do know, I know that I know. Since I want to give these kids something they can hang onto, I am careful to only talk about what I know that I know. (Y’know?)

So the overriding theme of my lessons this year is “Karma vs. Grace”.

It is my contention that the entire world operates with a belief in karma. Not the academic kind of karma, (one of the kids in the class actually knew the official Hindu definition), but the generic kind of “you get what you give” kind of karma. We expect fairness, scream bloody murder when we don’t get it, hold our leaders and public officials to it, and want it applied to greedy industrialists. I am not different.

What I find most  troubling is that most Xians think that is how God operates. It is my contention that God is out of the karma business. I think he exited that business when Jesus pronounced “it is finished” from the cross. God doesn’t operate an accounting business where he is busy balancing the books. Rather, He is the head of a family, and He actively loves His children; their behavior has zero impact on His love for them. This is grace.

Grace is offensive to our sense of justice and our belief in fairness. Worst of all, grace means God has no taste. If grace really is God’s M.O., then it means we are loved by Him not because of what do, not in spite of what we do, but simply because we are loved by Him. There is not a thing we can do about it. What we can do is either enjoy the benefits of His love, or not enjoy them.

I believe in grace, 200 proof, undiluted, delivered full blast from the fire hose. I know for a fact it makes people uncomfortable. People do not want grace, they want karma. Most people want to live in a world where they are rewarded for their good deeds because most people believe they “do enough good” to balance the scales of karma in their favor. The idea that God no longer uses scales is even more offensive than the idea that they might not be doing enough good.

I’ve written extensively about this at my old blogspot blog which I eventually hope to transfer over here.

Okay, so I was up till Oh-Dark-Thirty yesterday, which is not a Good Thing for me. MBB’s daughter Ashley, who lives with us, is dealing with walking pneumonia right now, as is her daughter Bella. Yesterday afternoon, MBB announced that she felt lousy and wished she had canceled work, (she was scheduled for the night shift again.) Then about 5:00 it hit me. Ugh. Head, belly, tired. Fortunately, the registry called and canceled MBB so she was able to sleep. But I had committed to help with yeardwork at the church this morning, so at 5:00 I was up and getting ready. At the church at 5:30, mowed for 2 hours and then came home and went right back to bed. Not excited about doing anything else today, but there is yet much to do.

Note to self: don’t stay up so late.

My best-beloved is cardio-vascular ICU nurse. She works the 7pm-7am shift and has worked four of the last six nights, which means our schedules are exactly 12 hours out of sync with each other. She is also a marvelous cook; my friends are amazed I don’t weigh 400 pounds. Given these two facts, it should be unsurprising that we ended up at the midnight showing of Julie and Julia last night. She got to indulge her passion for food, and she’s up all night anyway, so what’s the big deal?  We had the theatre entirely to ourselves – there was no one else there. We enjoyed it. If you like Food Network, or like Julia Child, or just like Meryl Streep, you’ll probably like this movie.

Evan Williams must hold the record for “The Most People Using the Most Words He Created in the Least Time”, or something like that. First “blog“, “blogger” and now “twitter“. Is he the Bill Shakespeare of the 21st century? (Ok, I am being facetious.)

But seriously, is there anyone else who has added words to the language that have become ubiquitous so fast? I’d like to hear your thoughts.