Jesus challenged his friends to forgive people seven times seventy which essentially means that we’re never freed from forgiving those who have offended us.

I wonder, though, in a time and culture where we are so incredibly mobile, where few work at the same job their whole lives and even fewer live in the same home their whole life, and where rootedness is a forgotten value if we ever rub shoulders with the same people enough to ever need to forgive someone seventy times. While I understand the metaphorical nature of Jesus’ statement it strikes me that very few of us stay in the same place long enough or put down roots deep enough to ever need to truly believe Jesus’ wild invitation. Who ever sticks around a person or place that needs that much forgiveness?!

Is it harder to forgive or to stay put? Is it harder to forgive or to know your neighbors? Hmm, I wonder.

While I think that I’ve created a false dichotomy, I still think it’s worth wrestling with. When someone offends you on Facebook what do you do? You defriend them, you remove them from your virtual world. When a barista at a cafe offends you what do you do? You go to a different coffee shop. When life starts to feel to bloated with all that crappy life stuff what do we do? We move, get a new job, a new house, etc. Being able to move, to relocate, and explore new areas is a gift, but it might be a gift that we’ve drank too deeply of. Are we a culture that’s drunk on change, newness, and mobility? And does that drunken state preclude us from the gift of forgiveness?

(Thanks to Mark Scandrette’s book “Practicing the Way of Jesus” for developing some of these thoughts)

I haven’t been functioning real high lately so my writing power has gone out the window…that is, if there were any writing power there in the first place and if there were a window through which to throw it out of. Nevertheless the show must go on and I think I’ll resort to the most basic of blog posts…the list.

1. Watching Backdraft today made me want to be a fireman. I was nearly brought to tears during the funeral scene at the end. Why couldn’t they just fund the fire department as they should have?!!
2. The longer I’m sick the more self loathing I become.
3. Last night was my last night of chemo for 28 more days. Hip, hip, hoorahhhugh….never mind.
4. I’m annoyed that “nevermind” isn’t a word but “notwithstanding” is. Some things in this world just aren’t just.
5. I’m tickled by the fact that I just wrote “just aren’t just”
6. The world can take great solace in the fact that I won’t be losing my second toe from the end on my left foot. The multiple antibiotics they’ve put me on are working. I think when we can’t fix cancer we find joy in fixing toes.
7. One of my antibiotics smells like rotten eggs. No joke. Avoid Cephalexin if you can.
8. My back’s been in real bad shape lately. In fact just the other night I was watching the Colbert Report and it was making me laugh so hard that I started to cry. I wasn’t crying because of the laughter itself but because it was causing my back to hurt so bad. No joke, literal tears from pain were streaming down my face as I was laughing uncontrollably. Quite the odd scene. Eventually I had to shut the computer and look away. Damn you Stephen Colbert, one day I’ll get you back!
9. I’d vote for Ron Paul. I would. He’s as old as a moldy raisin and the bags under his eyes are so big they’ve got to be checked at the ticket counter…but, yeah, I’d vote for that guy.
10. I’m pretty proud of what I wrote in #9
11. One time I lied to try to impress a girl. The lie? I said I cried in Home Alone.
12. I’m sad to say that #11 wasn’t a lie. And, no, it didn’t impress anyone.

I like the idea of spontaneity. As a matter of fact I like to think that I thrive in spontaneity. I’m a pretty loose guy, so going with the flow is not only enjoyable for me but I think I’m pretty good at it.

I also like the idea of a community of people who are spontaneously getting together, who do not need a weekly gathering to force them together but who love each other so much they see each other in a spontaneous way all the time. I like that idea. It sounds right. It sounds like true community.

But I think it’s somewhat hollow. I don’t think it works. I think people need routine in order to go to a certain depth of relationship. Without scheduled routine gatherings spontaneity either loses its grounding or the relationship itself can never go deeper than the randomness in which it exists.

I’m not happy with how this blog post is developing. Hmm.

Maybe you should just watch this instead…