The Shock Of Unemployment Becomes A Pathology

The Reason For Not Going Out And Sinning All You Like Is The Same As The Reason For Not Going Out And Putting Your Nose In A Slicing Machine: Its Dumb, Stupid, And No Fun. Some Individual Sins May Have Pleasure Still Attached To Them Because Of The Residual Goodness Of The Realities They Are Abusing: Adultery Can Indeed Be Pleasant And Tying One On Can Amuse. But Betrayal, Jealousy, Love Grown Cold, And The Gray Dawn Of The Morning After Are Nobody's Idea Of A Good Time.

The Church, By And Large, Has Had A Poor Record Of Encouraging Freedom. She Has Spent So Much Time Inculcating In Us The Fear Of Making Mistakes, That She Has Made Us Like Ill-taught Piano Students: We Play Our Songs, But We Never Really Hear Them Because Our Main Concern Is Not To Make Music To Avoid Some Flub That Will Get Us In Dutch.

Grace Is The Celebration Of Life, Relentlessly Hounding All The Non-celebrants In The World. It Is A Floating, Cosmic Bash Shouting Its Way Through The Streets Of The Universe, Flinging The Sweetness Of Its Cassations To Every Window, Pounding At Every Door In A Hilarity Beyond All Liking And Happening, Until The Prodigals Come Out At Last And Dance, And The Elder Brothers Finally Take Their Fingers Out Of Their Ears.

Preachers Are Stewards Whom The Lord Has ‘set Over His Household Servants To Provide Them With Food At The Proper Time.’ After All The Years The Church Has Suffered Under Forceful Preachers And Winning Orators, Under Compelling Pulpiteers And Clerical Bigmouths With Egos To Match, How Nice To Hear That Jesus Expects Preachers In Their Congregations To Be Nothing More Than Faithful Household Cooks.

Every Real Thing Is A Joy, If Only You Have Eyes And Ears To Relish It, A Nose And Tongue To Taste It.