Rooting up acorns, mining rainbows for gold

Is life fair? Maybe so, maybe not. But when you take the long view…things tend to work out. 

I’ve watched folks doin’ dirt and keepin’ their hands clean.
I’ve seen good folks hurt while praise gets heaped on folks who’re mean.
I’ve looked at folks climb to the top by trompin’ others down.
And then I’ve wondered, “Lord, O Lord, when does it come back ’round?”

I’ve heard mommas curse the kids they carried in their wombs.
I’ve seen kids whose evil drove their mommas to cold tombs.
I’ve talked to folks in desp’rate need whose blood kin let them down.
And then I’ve wondered, “Lord, O Lord, when does it come back ’round?”

But when I see the soft, sweet smile that lights a gen’rous face;
When I share the peace of folks who thank God for His grace;
When I’m helped and then I help folks get up off the ground;
Jesus tells me, “Look here, child! Love always comes back ’round.”

The Rwandan genocide involved Christians as well as others. A number of survivors reported that some Christian pastors collaborated with the murdering Hutu, even going so far as to herd their Tutsi parishioners into church buildings so they could be more efficiently butchered. But If Not… is  “a story, ain’t got no moral,” like the Billy Preston song. Just responsibilities and results to think about…

Click here to read But If Not … 

For some historical perspective, click here.

Is life fair? Apparently not, but …

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice…
Martin Luther King

Click here to read What Goes ‘Round.

“Being nice” is a good thing; it contributes to a civil society, but kindness is much more than the absence of unpleasant, rude, or hurtful behavior (though eliminating boorishness is a good thing). But kindness sometimes means taking the heat.

Close your eyes. Relax. Picture yourself in the middle of a huge, black asphalt-covered parking lot. It’s mid-August, about four in the afternoon, 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Feel the wicked-hot sun. No breeze. Mostly empty lot, and your car appears to be miles away, at the edge of the asphalt, barely visible through the shimmering waves of heat. Now start walking.

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Today, while waiting and praying for inspiration, the blind hog uncovered two acorns in the blogosphere:

• The first was in a daily devotional taken from Oswald Chambers’ work My Utmost for His Highest. (I’m paraphrasing it here to emphasize the personal nature of the observation):
  

  When I really see myself as the Lord sees me, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock me, but the ingratitude and pride of my own heart in resisting the love of Christ. When I see my stubbornness in the light of the Lord, then conviction hits home for me. But when I surrender all that I have and all that I am to Him, God equips me to do all that He requires of me.
  To become one with Jesus Christ, I must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender my whole way of looking at things and be willing to let go … so I can reach for something else.  

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Chip and Dan Heath are making interview/talk show rounds, being quoted in major print media, and swirling through great clouds of blogosphere talking about their book: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Ideas, business concepts, philosophies that make an impression, that grab hold and hang on are said to be “sticky.” (I guess ideas that don’t stick are “slippery” — too slick, too polished, too smooth to hang in, they slide right off whatever they touch– or simply “tacky” — just sticky enough to cling briefly and unpleasantly to your fingers before falling away and sticking briefly to something or somebody else.)

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If working at it is not the way to become the “living expression of God’s kindness,” then what is? Check out this parable of the Vine (by Bill McCracken and Toni Proudfoot), where we are branches grafted into Christ — the Vine:

Only one thing is necessary,” said the Vine, “abide in Me. Let Me be your peace and joy. What matters most is the time shared between us.”

“You see,” continued the Vine, “it is no longer a question of what you can do, but of whether or not you will let Me to do it through you. My love for you has healed your deepest hurt. I am all you need. You now live so that we might fill the needs of others. Our union will do this. My fruit in you will bring praise to our Keeper, the Father. All you need to do is to be ready and willing to bear the fruit.”

There it is. Grapes grow on grapevines; as long as we abide in the Vine — spending time with Jesus, studying His words, enjoying His presence — fruit of the Vine is the inevitable result.

[tags]kindness,spiritual fruit,the Vine[/tags]

Last year — 2006 — was my self-designated Year of Kindness: the 12 months during which I would make a sho’nuff, all-out effort to be kind. Not just to “be nice” to my family and friends (although God knows that can be hard sometimes), but to everybody I met. So how did I do? Well, I discovered two things. Here’s the first:

Artificial fruit is not very tasty. You want that non-sequitur to make sense? Let me tell you a personal story.

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A friend of mine has been helping her six-year-old daughter (let’s call her Alicia) memorize the Ten Commandments. After a few minutes of Thou-shalt-nots,  the little girl asked in frustration, “Mommy, is there anything we can do?” 

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