First for social justice: Trade As One. Do something with your discretionary funds that will help those who are living out the true horrors of human existence. The answer to this is not, I believe, to merely throw money at the poor (the liberal response), nor to ignore them (the conservative response), but to incorporate the least of these into the very systems which have brought so many of us such great relief and good in our earthly careers. For someone like me, the journals are the most enticing. But for God’s sake, make choices for the benefit of real men and women.

Secondly: Candy for your brain. Bart Ehrman and NT Wright talking theodicy; there are few discussions among men (=humankind, a word I wish would not have supplanted wer) that I would find more provoking, stimulating, or satisfying. Not satisfying in the sense that it solves any problem, but satisfying in the sense that an excellently cooked meal is satisfying.

Life is very busy, and life is very good. I’m about to post something very bad, and I don’t want you to think that it characterizes how I’ve been lately, but it is something I felt I ought to share. There’s more going on at the moment than I can even begin to put up here, but something occurred today that made me stop.

I was headed out of the grocery store, in my car and on the way out, when a lady carrying a baby stopped me and asked if I could spare her two dollars. I looked at her and said, “No, I don’t have any cash on me,” rolled up the window and drove away. I didn’t even think about it until I was nearly out of the parking lot. But there in my wallet were twelve dollars in cash, and this quote from Jesus (glorified and sitting on his throne) materialized in my mind:

Whatever you have not done for the least of these you have not done for me.

This was not a chance encounter. God had set up for me an opportunity to bless someone he loved, and I had failed to. Why? What is two dollars to me? Was I afraid of being “had”, of being used? But what is it to me if I had been: God is witness to her, not I, but he is witness to me too, and there is no partiality with him. What hellacious selfishness! For that is precisely the cry of hell: “It is mine!” But I only need to protect what is mine if I am in need. Am I a wretch? Am I an orphan? Do I not have a God who provides generously for me, even recently giving me opportunities for internship and housing and community… do I not believe he will continue? Should I not have emptied my wallet of all twelve of its measly dollars and given it with joy? He’s given me such glorious riches in himself and I didn’t, even at the lowest level, give in kind. Hell hoardes, and if I claim to be a son of heaven, I cannot hoard: there is no need to.

By the time I arrived home I was already feeling sick. My heart was tried – in the most trivial of ways – and found lacking; I had dishonored Christ. I was broken over it, and it’s still bugging me: Papa, forgive me. My heart is not nearly so upright as I thought it was. Am I really so different from Ebenezer Scrooge? Papa, take care of her: you might have through me, but I didn’t, and so take care of her anyway. I need you to remake me. I just need you. There are no do-overs, and how I wish there were. But there is grace, for even with a thousand do-overs I would still have a sinful heart. Wretch that I am, who will save me? Praise God – through Christ Jesus our Lord.