I am not quite sure how that last blog (sometimes I let things get to me) actually became public. I was writing, more as a catharsis than anything else and I was definitely not ready to put the piece on the blog. I thought that I had saved it into an area that was only to be seen by me. Little did I know that it was out there for everyone, spelling errors and all. I suppose that I should tell you now, because you have figured it out, that I have a very serious spelling problem. I’m not quite sure why that is, though I can think of a number of excuses (improper toilet training; sight reading method; harsh first grade teacher; kind first grade teacher; one excuse is as good as another) but I am not sure of what the real problem is, and I have tried reading books and listening to tapes but it doesn’t seem to have done me much good.
The problem, you see, is that I would rather not have broadcast that to everyone who reads the blog, but because I didn’t know how everything works I was pretty much forced to. I think sometimes that is a good thing. I am reading a funny, but also pointed book now called Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh (I found out about the book though a mention in a libertarian magazine that I subscribe to, this month it arrived with UFO magazine and Genii: The magazine for Conjurers, I think my post-man may be a little afraid of me). Radosh follows one of his family members to a Christian concert for the first time and finds evangelicalism a rather strange subculture for a person who is not a Christian. He then attends “Christian” concerts, book conventions, abstinence get togethers (it just doesn’t seem right to call it an abstinence show), comedy nights, and even Christian wrestling matches. One of the things that I was struck with as I read the book was how often we evangelicals are not really honest. Not honest with others and more often not honest with ourselves. There is no lack of examples in the book of twisted statistics and sometimes downright lies that are accepted by the community when “used for good.”
Somehow I think that honesty and openness is a better tactic than many of those that I read about being used by my brothers and sisters. Don’t get me wrong. The whole point of this piece is that I would rather not show my mistakes to the world and in many ways I think that is a good thing. But in many ways I think that we have to be willing to admit that we Christians fail, often, and that God loves us in spite of that, in spite of our spelling errors, our lack of love, our hateful mean-spirited ways, and our less than Christian and sometimes anti-Christian actions.
The truth is, we are all broken. Some of us hide it pretty well, but for others there is no spell checker in the world than can hide the brokenness that is written on their face. I can’t help but think of the great Derek Webb song “They’ll know us by the T shirts that we wear”
They’ll know us by the T shirts that we wear
They’ll know us by the way we point and stare
At anyone whose sin is worse than ours and who cannot hide the scars
of this sin that we all bear
Can’t we do a little better job at showing the love of Christ to those that are around us?
Just a thought, Your mileage may vary,
DrSAmLam