I can't remember the last time I went to a movie - we may be talking a decade or more - but I enjoy dramas on TV. I typically do not enjoy interviews with actors. So many of those at the top of their profession seem self-obsessed, artificial, and have values and standards very different from mine. I'd much rather know them only from their roles.
We have the furnace thermostat set to kick on at about 57 degrees so it doesn't take an unreasonable amount of time for the wood stove to warm things up in the morning. It kicked on several times during the night last night as the outside temp dropped to 32 degrees.
I hate that sound. All I can imagine is the budget getting slammed as the meter's wheel spins around. I think I'll bump it down a notch tonight.
All that excellent food showed up on the scale this morning. That grunting sound you heard was me climbing back on the bandwagons, the paleo and CrossFit bandwagons. Hard to believe only four days does that kind of damage.
I read online that the Veneta woman shot in the home invasion a couple of weeks ago died of her injuries on Christmas day. If the locals are to be believed that was a drug related event and the house was the site of a meth lab. Like many rural areas this part of Lane County has a meth problem.
The Veneta/Elmira Facebook page has lots of comments related to her death, most of which are a simple "Rest In Peace." Others talk about angels carrying her to heaven, her reunion with her husband there (he was killed during the invasion), and what a wonderful woman she was.
I expect and accept those comments for what they are, the sentiments of people genuinely touched by the death of two victims of a violent crime. There is, however, something disingenuous about them. People who complain about meth labs, dealers, and their blight on the community quickly become sentimental when one of them loses "her courageous battle" for life.
I think there's a defensive mechanism involved. The sudden death of a woman known to many local residents reminds them of their own mortality and the possibility that they, too, could die suddenly. The premise that everyone goes to heaven, including local drug dealers, assures them that they, too, will be there when their time comes.
Approximately 50 years ago preaching about hell fell out of favor. It was deemed harsh and off-putting, too negative if we want to win over unbelievers. Better to talk only about God's love and the blessings of the Christian life. I'm guessing that four letter word hasn't been uttered from the pulpit in the vast majority of evangelical churches even once this year.
One problem with this shift: it ignores the Bible's frequent talk about the righteous judgment of God on those who reject the gift of salvation through the sacrificial death of his Son. When we talk only about God's love we can't fault people who send everyone, including drug dealers and, by extension, themselves to heaven. We've stopped talking about hell, so they've stopped thinking about it.
The good news of salvation is indeed the promise of blessings in this life and the life to come. But it's salvation because it spares us from our deserved judgment of an eternity in hell. We are saved from something unspeakably horrible to something incomprehensibly wonderful, and this because of God's great grace. To ignore the former is to minimize that grace because it diminishes Christ's work on the cross, taking the punishment we deserve.
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