On Social Tool Kits and Social Wreckers

Michael: You know that, tragically, the alternative to keeping a well stocked social tool kit is having to call a social wrecker service.

William: And the sad part is we, as a social engineering society, are calling the wreckers out for blinkers that blink too quickly or not quickly enough while advocating driving on the wrong side of the road.

Michael: Yes, Unfortunately we are no longer interested in the trip. We are completely focused on the car, on the bells, the whistles, the sound system, the gleam and the shine, all while we go zipping through this world unaware of the beauty we're passing up. The only time we pause to look at the landscape is when we've run off in the ditch.

William: So right. We are speeding with bald tires down the wrong way on ice. Then we are dumbfounded why the ditch is our destination.

Why Does Rain Have Chemisty?

Why does rain have chemistry? Why are we so familiar that we never just gawk in wonder at the clouds? Why do we not wonder at the union of hydrogen with oxygen as at a mysterious marriage in some ancient cathedral with bride and bridegroom in sacrament? Why do we not wonder at the improbability of water? And even more so: how it comes out of the atmospheric anatomy of cloud? And why should an August day make molecules change into another state that can rise?Perhaps we know how, but will we ever know why?

So many why's to the world.

Rain

Rain. The wagon will rust. The snow melts. The eaves fill with runoff and rainwater runs down the drainpipe. Even the street must be clean. Its salt and sand in solution washes to the sewer grate. The ocean receives. Yes, all the iniquity of winter. I stand outside with my hands open. I listen.

"Radical" Feminism

Many use the addendam "radical" with "feminism" as if to say that they are not against feminism per se but against the more radical elements of it: the feminism that has sought to promote abortion, hatred of men, etc. But they claim that feminism of itself is rather a good thing: that it has liberated women. But I would ask how has it liberated women?

I for one will fight it if it has freed them from their glorious femininity. For it is indeed the firm strength a handmaiden had at the approach of an angel. But now it is endangered in our present egalitarian Eden. The current credo would have the female mimic maleness which fudges the fineness that is the feminine. It is taking the delicacy of a piece of bone china and remaking it into an ordinary masculine mug. May we not be so deceived. At its roots feminism seeks to alter the archetype of what began as unfallen Adam and the immaculate Eve. It cries out against God's original. May, it be otherwise. May what Elisabeth Elliot called"the glorious inequality" not be erased, but celebrated by us who love how God latticed the universe.

Ms. or Miss

For women who I do not know of their marital state I use "Miss" even at the risk of being misunderstood as, at the least, a hopeless antiquated romantic; or worse, an unsympathetic chauvenist. I never use "Ms." which if I was a woman would offend me---to me I would feel it would allign me to Gloria Steinhem's demand for an androgynous sociology. I find this antithetical to God's design, and contrary to most of mankind's history which had this differentition as a way of protecting married women from adulterous advances.

The Delightful Difference

Yes, in contrast to the cultural homogenizing of the sexes there is a delightful difference between male and female. However, it is not PC to point out what Elisabeth Elliot dubbed "the glorious inequality". But we must have the courage to resist the falseness of fudging the beautiful distinction that God had established all the way back in Genesis.

the Gospel and politics

I would agree mostly with you except for the claim that Jesus wanted nothing to do with politics. If we look at the entire Scripture we see in St Paul's letters (I presently don't remember the references) which are of course inspired by the Holy Spirit there is the line about "honoring the king" and the "sword having been giving to the governing authorities", etc. However, I think you are certainly right concerning the main purpose of Christianity is to get our hearts right before God---but there is the sense that in historic Christianity there has quite often been an intrusion into politics: William Wilburforce arguing in England against the slave trade, Reverend Stowe preaching against slavery, John Paul II and his part in the taking down of the Berlin Wall, to name just a few. But you are so right to keep politics as secondary to the salvivic primary goal.

Socialism and Jesus

The context of this response is to one that advocated socialism and claimed that Jesus would and was a socialist. Here is my rebuttal:
First, socialism is more accurately "statism". The state controls things. I don't think Jesus promoted this. It is one thing to give to charity of one's free will. But it is another thing to have your "charity" confiscated by the state. That is not charity in the Christian sense. On a small scale if I was to take your money from you to give a homeless man that would not be charity; it would be theft. This is not to say that it would be good for you to give from your heart. This is very different than what statism does. I for one do not feel it is in keeping with Christ to allow tax dollars to go to the murdering of the unborn. This is one of the way the state confiscates your money.