Diversion


Dear Eugene,

I read on a poster at work about my company's "sustainability goals," and one of them says "90% diversion of grace."

That's what I thought I read.

Of course it was "waste."  Of course it's a Freudian slip of a Christian coming off a Sunday consciousness ready for a Monday submersion.

Of course no one would admit to it, that there's grace everywhere but we would divert our mind to something else 90% of the time (if not more), that we would turn aside, deflect from the path of grace, distract ourselves from this true thrust of our life story.

The same way there's no way the "Parable of the Rich Fool" can be about me: I've read all the details many times and the specifics don't match up to those of my life.  So Jesus wasn't talking to me and I can use this story insofar to speak his mind to others who need to be spoken to this way.

The same way the commandment "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain" is not something I need to wrestle with, not daily, not sometimes, probably not ever, because I don't curse with God's name and everything I've ever said about him is far from silly.  I don't know why people need to involve God in their cursing especially nowadays when it's not even linguistically fashionable to mention God at all.

Well, it's Monday alright. A glorious Vancouver spring day, middle of a long temperate dry spell, breeze gentle and tender.  We have everything going for us.  We set ours lives up pretty brilliantly.

And I wonder how many of us woke up this morning to no meaning.

Yours, Alex

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