Bah!

Scattered Scrooge-Like Thoughts

 

Thorns and Thistles in the Kitchen. Got my fruitcake cookie dough mixed and in refrigerator. The top came off as I lifted the flour container out of the cabinet and there is flour all over the floor. Nuts and sticky fruit are slung all over the kitchen. I am not going back in there till FEMA gets here and decides if I qualify for disaster relief. And I am waiting on salmonella to kick in as I ate raw cookie dough. And, of course, I have to have a hot, delicious supper ready to be served at 5:35. I bet if SHE stayed home and tried this even one day she would have a different view whether or not I have job.

Occupy. I need to see lawyer tomorrow or somebody. I firmly believe that as a white, male, over 60 I am a victim in this society of race, gender, and age discrimination. And all the government does for me is send me a piddling SS check. Something needs to be occupied! But what? Maybe just the couch.

Just Asking. What comes to the minds of women when the minister speaks of lust, sins of thought, secret sins, and the like? And do anybody’s thoughts go to things like malice and pride and feel shame about them.

Parental Pondering. We always celebrated Christmas. Nevertheless, we made my mother mad. (My dad probably wasn’t happy either but was too wise and restrained to say much.) We never let our children believe in Santa Claus.They knew kids got gifts from their parents. (In our case, more accurately it was from their grandparents through their parents.) We were not alone. A lot of other folks, who did not go all the way and reject Christmas completely, did the same thing. We did not want our children to believe a myth for truth. What would that do to our credibility when they found out the truth? Would they put God in the same category as a Person whom you believe in though you could not see him – and so believe God to be a myth? What would they think about a God who sees them though they cannot see him? And, what about getting good stuff by works – oh, we did teach them that, didn’t we? That’s another thing – more law than grace, more merit than mercy was our parental style. We were part of the revival of Reformed theology and the first generation of TRs. And we were priggish about many things. Determined to do a better child of childrearing than our parents and to be better Christians than a previous generation, we sometimes did and were worse. We didn’t mean to; we didn’t know any better; and we could not see ourselves.  Funny thing about children. By the time you figure out some things, they are gone and vowing they won’t make the mistakes with their kids you made with them. I suppose all this should make me more understanding and tolerant of some of the young Reformed pastors and parents who have everything figured out – and can’t yet possibly realize they don’t. It usually takes time for God to humble you about the stuff you thought you had together, and I suppose some of it doesn’t come till you die.   But I am afraid that when I hear from the young their confident assertions about a great many things which seem not nearly so clear or certain to me, as an old man I can be as priggish now as I was way back then. There is more humbug than we know in almost all of us.