Living in a community where the average age is 73 means lots of Buicks, lots of grumpy and lots of rules. Old people are afraid, and rules are like fences. So I probably shouldn't be too surprised that the rec center where I go to work out during these hottest months has rules posted everywhere. Among them is a sheet of paper kicked out of someone's printer with nine photos obviously pulled off a variety of internet sites illustrating clothing options that are NOT acceptable. "These may not be worn at Sun City Rec Centers:"
I'm assuming the picture of the young lady wearing a sports bra is meant to say a woman has to wear something over the top her sports bra. (Don't picture a 73-year old woman wearing a sports bra sans shirt. You don't want that image in your head.) Men with bulging upper arms and shoulders must not wear muscle shirts, a prohibition that seems unnecessary.
If they really wanted to protect us from the gag reflex they'd prohibit old men with spindly legs and huge guts from wearing tiny Speedos. Please!
Some great tennis coming out of the U.S. Open, including several young Americans. They've said for awhile that we don't have any good prospects coming up through the Juniors, that when the current top tier Americans - Roddick, the Williams sisters, Mardy Fish - disappear from the tour over the next few years the sport will be dominated by Europeans. This tournament puts that concern to rest. Donald Young, Christina McHale, Madison Keys....
That said, we have a seemingly endless line of 6' blonde Russian and Eastern European women who can smack that tennis ball.
I'm working something in my head. I'm not sure I'll get it to resolution but it warrants some work.
The NT epistles speak often to the battle between the believer and the world, sometimes even using military terminology (e.g. spiritual armor in Eph. 6). We wrestle not against flesh and blood, Satan is the prince, the power of the air and the world seeks to press us into their mold, an effort we must resist by being transformed. No doubt about it, we are in a spiritual war against the world which is hostile to everything that is godly.
Side by side with these passages are those that speak to the love and compassion believers should have for the world. Paul says he would give up his own salvation if it meant the salvation of his people the Jews (Rom. 9:ff), the very group that persecuted him in every way imaginable. We should show hospitality to all and take every opportunity to do good to all men. We are to show them the grace we've experienced through Christ and take the good news of Christ's substitutionary atonement to them. Paul made it his mission to take the gospel everywhere he could despite the very high personal cost which eventually resulted in his death. He was driven by compassion for those without Christ, members of the very system with which we're at war.
It's interesting that the music of the church has reflected these two perspectives. An entire body of warfare hymns and songs stands alongside "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying...." Growing up in church, I could join the congregation singing, "Soldiers of Christ, Arise" followed immediately by, "Bring Them In." So which am I supposed to do, raise the sword or love them into the Body? How do I reconcile these two perspectives?
Of those two, which is the predominate view in the eyes of the world? That is, do they see believers as a group who counts them as a threatening enemy or as the objects of love and grace?
Even if we say the former is their view, does that mean anything? After all, that's biblical.
This is too much for a Sunday evening. It may be too much for a Wednesday morning, at least for this feeble mind.
The Diamondbacks took two of three from the S.F. in their park, putting the home town boys seven games in front of the #2 Giants in our division with the season quickly winding down. Baseball is one of the few sports I find more boring than soccer but this has me at least checking the box scores as we near October.
Tomorrow is Labor Day, a day almost everyone stays home and doesn't.
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