Hopewit

Young men are proud of their strength. Gray hair brings honour to old men. (Proverbs 20:29) Most old(er) men have lost that edge that would keep you apprehensive, wary of them in the days when we all had something to prove and explosive libidos had to be tamed on the volleyball court, on ski hills or in some vicious and unforgiving raquet ball court. Their solipsistic piss-and-vinegar traded in for one more day without back pain, or shoulder weakness, or urinal-straining. The old(er) man’s Faustian trade-off with the devil. Mostly, our conversation (us older men, that is) is motivated by surprise, the amazement that we’re walking around in our grandfathers’ slippers, the in-credulocity at the number of candles on the cake, put there—seemingly— while our backs were turned for just a glance or two to watch some lively girls stroll by. . . . or wondered how the bottom of the glass could show itself so soon, while we were still mightily thirsty. ...

"Musick hath Charms to soothe a savage Breast,  To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak." “ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is pure. That’s the most important thing about it. And that’s not all. It also loves peace. It thinks about others. It obeys. It is full of mercy and good fruit. It is fair. It doesn’t pretend to be what it is not. Those who make peace plant it like a seed. They will harvest a crop of right living.” (James 3:17-18, NIV) James’ recipe for achieving “right living” is no real recipe at all. It’s the fruit that grows out of the peace-making act and the peace-making act follows from embracing “heavenly wisdom.” James’ definition of “right living” here reads like a gentle, rippling brook, particularly since so much of his epistle seems harsh, almost angry, a grandpa shouting at children to behave. Only a few verses back (verse 6, exactly) he says, “The tongue is the most evil part of the body. It makes the whole body impure. It sets a person’s w...

  Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”    “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”     “Which ones?” he inquired.    Jesus replied, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,   honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.”     “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”    Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”    When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. In Matthew 19:16-22, (NIV) we have one of the pithiest parables in all of the the gospels, I think. I’d go as far as t...

A Sunday at Lake Manitou Next Sunday, we begin a discussion in an adult study group in Eigenheim on the volatile question of doctor-assisted suicide. We all know what that is: the least euphemistic definition of suicide is “self murder,” as compared to, say, patricide , which is “father-murder.” And in law, murder doesn’t apply unless the act is premeditated, deliberate. If suicide were considered a crime in law—which it practically is not anymore—a doctor assisting in a self-murder would be guilty of, at least, being an accessory to murder. Similarly, if in law the human foetus were ever declared a person , then the one performing an abortion (or personally attempting to abort her own unwanted pregnancy) would be guilty in law of murder . There are plenty of people campaigning for the law to be rewritten to make that a fact, aren’t there? There are ethical standards, though, that are not governable by legal systems elected to create national laws, police t...

I’m with most people on this: I resent my behaviour being analyzed as if I were a dog, or a lion, or a sheep. As in, for instance, “ We all, like sheep , have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way . . .” (Isaiah 53:6, NIV). Most galling is the implication that I’m guided by a “herd mentality,” the accusation that I’m not choosing my path logically and intelligently, but am just going along with whatever “herd” I happen to have chosen.  Political parties are “herds,” religious denominations are “herds,” Fox News watchers are a “herd,” CNN watchers are a different “herd.” It’s not hard—they say—to tell which herd you or I are loyal to; we spout a common line even if we don’t understand it, exhibit similar behaviours, denigrate people who don’t belong in our “herd.” As hard as we've worked at it, the conviction that a race is a herd has been almost impossible to eradicate. Baaa.  Like bison or caribou, though, to opt “out of your h...