World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS day. One of my students from South Africa (SA) tells me that her country has the highest HIV/AIDS statistics in the world (6.5 million people). That means somebody dies every five minutes due to neglect and lack of access to healing medicine. I hope you are doing something about AIDS...supporting widows and orphans, giving to your favorite aid organization--something. Love acts.

And the Winner Is...

The winner of a free copy of one of the Coffee Cup Bible Studies is Reiko, who wrote what our independent judge considered the most unusual entry. Reiko expressed gratitude for the eight-month stretch of unemployment she and her family have endured.

I have another book to give away. It's a hardback work from NavPress titled Who Was Adam? A Publishers' Weekly review says of this book, "The authors of this study are distressed that many people, from scientists to judges, define creationism as a religious view rather than a legitimate scientific theory, and they attempt to redeem it as a science. (It is worth noting that both authors hold doctorates, one in chemistry and one in astronomy.)" They present a creation-model view on the origin of mankind, and their endorsers include an impressive list of scholars. You can read some of the thirty-plus reviews at Amazon to get a feel for what people are saying about this book. Want to win it so you can give it to your favorite science geek for Christmas? Just shoot a comment letting me know you want me to include you. I'll announce a winner sometime Saturday.

We've bundled up here. Temps this evening in Dallas were seventy-ish. I think it has dropped forty degrees since then. Our daughter hopes, hopes, hopes Mesquite ISD will cancel school tomorrow, especially because her uncle Bob is here for two days visiting from Washington, D.C.

How I Espent My "Vacation"

I'm taking an enforced rest, recuperating from clavicle/hip surgery. I feel lots less discomfort compared to last time (no cracked ribs and now I have a hospital bed, so I sleep better with the sling on), but I still need a nap once or twice a day. And holding a book still poses a challenge one-handed, so it may be another week or so before I have the energy to start tackling my reading stash.

On Thanksgiving my sister's family, Gary's mom, and our friends, Octavio and Angelica from Mexico joined our family. I made a few side dishes with Gary's help, and everybody else covered the pies, turkey, and sweet potato souffle. After the meal we watched "Nacho Libre." Talk about your quirky flick. Our friends helped us catch some of the especial lame humor we'd have otherwise missed. Normally on Thanksgiving we watch something holidayesque like "White Christmas." This year we went for mindless entertainment. Just my espeed right now. (The photo here came from the "Thank-you PowerPoint card" that Octavio and Angelica emailed yesterday.)

So in the espirit of Nacho, I want to share some highlights from my two-and-a-half-week "rest."

Knowing Mike and Lance were sitting with Gary while I was "under" and that our girl was in good hands with the Kirsteins
Appreciating hospital visits from some dear friends and family
Enjoying flowers from my parents, my office, and Mary in France
Watching the rainy, windy, Macy's parade
Eating dinners delivered by sis Mary (three times!), Virginia, Reiko, and Kelley
Making a shopping list for my husband
Basking in a new yellow robe and fuzzy footwear
(Speaking of which...) Laughing over "festive thongs" signed by Erin and the RBF women (and chuckling when the phrase "festive throng" showed up on my Dante reading the next week)
Getting through the third season of Alias
Chuckling through the "High Fidelity" video Rhonda sent me
Making a honey-do list for my husband
Trying to catch up on Dante. Still behind, but appreciated his reference to "Christ our Pelican." (In mythology, pelicans rip their flesh to nourish their starving babies with their own blood.)
Appreciating the ride to Dante class offered by my sis on one of her few days off (a five-hour commitment for her)
Cheering that the prof let us out after 75 minutes rather than keeping us the usual three hours
Watching the kids and Reiko do the Christmas box project (see earlier entry)
Making another shopping list for my husband
Watching "Cars" with my daughter
Watching my family put up the Christmas tree today
Trying to fold towels one-handed. My cupboards look like someone wadded up towels and shoved them in there.
Giving thanks that I normally have two arms and hands. "Two are better than one, for they have a good return for their labor."
Returning to the classroom to teach...tomorrow.

Christmas Giveaway

Have you been to the mall lately? I haven't. I can't drive for two months, but I'd avoid the mall even if I could drive. When my friend Virginia went to Kohl's yesterday to pick up a dress for her granddaughter, the check-out line involved a two-hour wait. So she went home and ordered the same dress on the internet for less and with free shipping.

I have not yet moved on to Christmas. I'm still stuck back in Thanksgiving. For what are you thankful? The person listing the most unexpected or unusual entry (comment) will win a copy of Solomon Latte or Java with the Judges (your choice) to keep or "regift" as a Christmas present for someone on your list.

I'll ask an independent judge to determine the winner on Wednesday of this week.

So thank away.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for my guy and my girl! My health. My family. I'm just getting started...

Newsy News

A review of some recent ups and downs at our house:

Pro: A South Korean publisher wants Solomon Latte. I've had stuff translated into Spanish and Portuguese and German, but not Korean. (It always makes me nervous to see my own stuff in another language. I could be staring at twelve typos on page one and never know it!)

Con: My husband, daughter, mom-in-law and I are each getting $50 travel vouchers from American Airlines. A con, you ask? Why no pro? Read on...

Con: We bought AA tickets to Washington, D.C., for Christmas, and today I found that the fares had dropped $150 each for the same flight/time/day. Do the math: That is a $600 decrease! So I called American and asked if we could get some sort of refund or cancel and start over. That's when I learned we had to pay $100 each to "change" (even though we keep the exact same seats), and that leaves a difference of $50 each, so we get vouchers to use toward future travel. It is such a rip off that, for the first time ever, a customer service person actually empathized with me. (You know it's bad when...)

Pro: AMG notified me that we're going back to press with Mocha on the Mount and Espresso with Esther. If you have copies and found typos, let your inner critic speak (via private email, please). I found some (drove me nuts) on the first run, but at least we get to rectify things now.

Pro: My cough vanished. Today marks the one-week point for being pain-killer-free. Compared with last time, I feel great.

Con: You should see my "in" box. Have you noticed how often I've updated my blog? Does the word "avoidance" come to mind?

Notes Posted

If you attended the Women's Leadership Conference at Dallas Seminary and have been waiting for me to post the notes for my lecture, "Rx for the Highly Caffeinated, Tech-Savvy, Overcommitted Woman: Trendwatch and Response--Minister to the Overworked Smart Girl," you can now find them over in the lecture notes section of my web site.

The World Outside My Door

Today I made it to church. Yay!

I had not planned to go, but when my friend Kelley dropped by this week with a pot of her signature Louisiana gumbo, she asked, “Will you be there this Sunday?”

"Uh, no."

“Why not?”

“It’s uncomfy, given my condition, to sit that long in straight, low-back chairs.”

“We could drag in a high-back chair from the reception area.”

I said I’d be in the way.

She said people could go around me. They’d see my sling and know I wasn’t trying to be a prima donna.

So I went.

We scooted a big chair into the sanctuary, and sure enough—people figured out how to get around me. Can you imagine? Sometimes they even stopped to deliver a gentle hug. And sitting in the big, cushioned chair, I made it through the hour without even needing any Tylenol.

It felt great to get out of the house for the first time post-op. The world looked a bit more colorful (Texas’s wee bit of fall has arrived) and gas prices had inched up only a few cents. But the best part was getting to worship with so many who have given, as always, far more than asked or required to help us in our time of need. I wept when I heard Kelley thank God for my presence there.

As if that weren't enough, the day got even better, thanks to Reiko. I’ve known Reiko for about seven years. A few years ago, she and her family moved to Japan, where she is from, but this summer they returned and bought the place six houses down the street from us. Their daughter and ours, now in the same class at school, love each other like sisters. So Reiko took her kids (her son is a second-grader) and my daughter, and off they went to buy stuff for our church’s Christmas box project.

We partner with a sister church, Iglesia Kerygma Bautista, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and every year Kerygma tells us how many boxes they’ll need (usually around 250). Then our church of about 115 puts them together and sends down a team to join with Kerygma to distribute the boxes to Kerygma's kids and to families in their mission church.

What a joy to distribute boxes containing necessities (combs, toothbrushes, washcloths, toothpaste, soap) and toys (stuffed animals, pens, tops, compasses, calculators, etc.) to kids who have little or nothing, as many of our members have done. They have seen first-hand the gratitude from families, many with no running water, when they receive the boxes. (The girl in the photo above is our daughter's good friend from one such trip. They speak different languages, but no problem. They told us smiles are universal.)

So…about today…I had some cash set aside for this year’s project, but I can’t drive or carry anything, right? So Reiko offered to shop for us. I gave her the cash, and our friend Jeni gave her a 20%-off coupon, and off Reiko went with the kids (who added some of their own money) to help them learn how it’s better to give than to receive.

While they shopped at Dollar General and Big Lots, I dragged out (okay, I got Gary to drag out) the extra toys stored from last year’s leftover donations. When Reiko and the kids returned with supplies, we made a huge mess of it all in my living room.

At my sister’s birthday party in September, we spent a few minutes wrapping a stack of empty shoe boxes. So we had ten of those, plus one my niece dropped by yesterday, and Reiko brought three more of her own. We had boxes; we just needed goodies.

The kids and Reiko worked hard while I sat and drank it in, useless but delighted. The kids squealed as they imagined what this girl or that boy might like, and packed a box accordingly. Now next to my couch sit fourteen colorfully-wrapped boxes all finished, with enough stuff left over to hand out “starter” packets in gallon Zip-lock bags next Sunday for other box-assemblers.

Was it a coincidence that my Bible fell open this afternoon to the story about Jesus feeding 4,000 with a couple of loaves and fish?

The Three Trees

As an author, I can appreciate the literary finesse required to weave an image from beginning to end of a work. That's why I love the Bible's tree motif.

Genesis begins with a tree in the orchard. Lots of trees; only one forbidden. But they eat. Then Eve gets tree-pain (the word for pain in childbearing is unusual, sounding like "tree"--a fitting consequence).

Then we find a tree in the middle of history. "Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree," we read. And we find Jesus nailed to it. That tree connects beginning with end...

...which is where we find the final tree. Revelation. The last chapter. In a new orchard where one of the same trees reappears. And those who partake will never die. No more night. No more pain. No more tears.

That is some fine storytelling!

Do you ever think about that when you put up your Christmas tree?

Religion and Politics

"Evangelicals aren’t re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities. That could be bad news for both political parties." Can I get an "Amen"? Or maybe an "It's about time"? Once in a while I read a news story that leaves me saying "Amen"--like the one quoted above by David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The piece ran in today's New York Times. Check it out.

The Ted Thing

Last week two days before surgery, I spoke at Dallas Seminary's women's leadership conference. Part of my workshop focused on praying the psalms of lament. Afterward, a woman approached me privately, her eyes welling with tears. The reason for her ache: a) her pastor/boss just confessed to an adulterous relationship and b) she and her husband went to college with Ted Haggard. While dealing with her own deep sense of betrayal, she must also guide women in her care who say stuff like, "I will never again trust men." Heartbreaking!

Lots of people have commented on the Haggard mess. But the best I've read came from the word processor of "Biblegirl" at Dallas' alternative weekly. Check it out.

Africa Lament

Several months ago, as I drove my daughter down I-30 in Dallas, we saw a banner draped across the front of a church. It said, “SAVE DARFUR.” She asked what that meant, so I tried to explain. Her next question immediately (and logically) followed: “What can we do?”

I saw the sign again three days ago on my return from the hospital. Good for them! Something as simple as a banner has people talking and asking questions.

The “in” box stacks up in my absence. The emails needing replies now number over 100. And a cold that has me hacking has affected my optimism (and energy) about a relatively pain-free recovery. Still, I can’t stop thinking about that water thing, especially in Darfur.

There women must leave the relative safety of refugee camps to find potable flows. Husbands cannot do so because of the risk of death from enemy bullets. Women face “only” the threat of rape. Can you imagine choosing between death by thirst or risking rape? On a regular basis? The Janjaweed rape and mutilate hundreds of thousands of women and girls as young as eight. Then victims’ husbands disown them and entire communities shun them. It amazes me that females face all that for the stuff we get free and limitless directly into our homes via a faucet. (My place has six.)

Picture a country the size of Texas with only seven thousand soldiers and you can understand why even with troops accompanying their convoys, women need far more protection.

How can we help?

First, shoot a message to our representatives in Washington (link below). Darfur lost a couple of key allies in the Bush Administration several months ago, so we need to stay especially vigilant about keeping the genocide in the forefront of our politician’s minds.

Second, click on links to Darfur news stories whenever we see them. One study showed fifty times more coverage for Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise than the genocide. But news organizations sell what sells. If we click on hot stories about Britney or Paris but neglect the hard news in Africa, we send a message about what we want crews to cover.

Third, write. Craft a letter to the editor of your local paper. Or post something in the blogosphere. Stick a reminder on your church’s announcements page and or on the prayer list.

Fourth, pray. Pray now. Pray often.

For more info, check out http://www.savedarfur.com/.

Back-to-ya Love

Last Friday morning well before dawn, the tinkling sound of vials carried by a dark form roused me from my morphine-induced slumber. He flipped on the switch over the sink, and the soft glow offered enough light for me to notice two things. First, the man who entered wore a cheerful white smile on a dark face. And second, Gary, my husband, lay exactly as he had been when I fell asleep—curled at my feet on the vinyl “recliner” where he’d camped since my arrival.

I returned the stranger’s smile. He scanned my armband for the UPC code bearing my name and birth date, but he asked my name just to be sure.

“Sandra Glahn,” I said. I stared at the so-called bed where my husband lay for a second night while the pleasant stranger wrapped a tourniquet around my arm and slid in a needle. I considered the overrated Hollywood brand of good-times love and pointed to my husband. “See that right there? That’s love,” I said.

Gary’s rhythmic breathing changed slightly. Without opening his eyes, he turned over, his back now toward me. Then he eased into his former rhythm.

“Yeah. Turns over and gives you his back,” the man said. His tone sounded affirming, but his words seemed to suggest my husband’s change in body language signaled disloyalty. Was the man mocking me? Before I could ask what he meant, he clarified: “That’s the sleep of security. He doesn’t have to face you. He can turn over and give you his back, and you both know he ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“You a poet?” I asked. He seemed wise for 4 a.m. thinking.

“I try to be.” He flashed me another smile, flicked the switch, and disappeared into the night.

Obeying and Thirst

A week before my surgery date, I had to make a pre-op visit to the hospital. I gave blood; I had an EKG; I answered pages of questions about symptoms and health history. Then I signed the forms. You know the ones—where you acknowledge that what you are about to endure could kill you.

One of the written instructions I received along with information about organ donation (sheesh) said, “No food or drink after midnight on the day of the procedure.” The surgeon’s nurse called the day before my procedure to make sure I got it: NO FOOD OR DRINK AFTER MIDNIGHT.

The food part I could stomach, so to speak. The drink part was another matter.

I am probably one of the few adults who sleeps with a sippy cup beside the bed. That way when I take a drink in the middle of the night while half-comatose, I won’t drench myself with juice or water or Fresca. I have this antibody condition that keeps my sinus tissues dryer than they should be.

Sure enough, when I awoke the day of surgery, I longed for a cup of java. On the way to the hospital, I gazed at the water bottle my husband keeps in the car. I’d never paid much attention to it, but now it mocked me from its little plastic holder. I thought, “If only I could touch a drop to my tongue.”

According to a 2004 report by the World Health Organization, more than 2.6 billion people—that’s more than 40 percent of everybody in the entire world—lack access to safe drinking water. In short, they thirst. How is it that I’m so out of touch with the way so many live? How is it that I am so rich and they are so poor?

As I lay in my private admitting room last Wednesday morning, all I could think about was thirst. I thought about how Jesus said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” In a part of the world where people diet and discipline themselves to cut back on drinking, we can miss the power in a simile about longing for those things. But last Wednesday morning, I craved water. And I wondered what it would look like if I longed for righteousness as much as I coveted ice chips.

I thought, too, of Jesus suffering on the cross. He didn’t say, “My wrists hurt where they nailed me to the wood,” nor “My back aches where lashes have exposed me to the tissues.”

He said, “I thirst.”

I thought of Lazarus. Not Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus raised from the dead. But the other Lazarus:

And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores.

Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried.

And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And [the rich man] cried out and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.”

But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.”

And he said, “Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.”

But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.”

But he said, “No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!”

But he said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.”

The rich man had the ability to alleviate Lazarus’s suffering in his earthly lifetime, but instead he spent his resources on himself. And in doing so he had his reward, short-lived as it was.

So I sit now in my room at home by the hospital bed ordered to keep me from using my good clavicle to pull myself up and thus strain the one that needs to heal. After spending two-and-a-half days at Baylor with my husband sleeping on a chair at my feet and with a comfortable flow of loving friends and family, I sit once again in the midst of my many things. Thanks to the prayers of hundreds (some of whom I’ve never met) and good medical care, my pain never inched much above a “3” on a scale of 1–10. And yesterday, my cumulative total of pain meds for the day was two over-the-counter Tylenol tabs.

Still, I am uncomfortable. And it’s not the stupid sling I have to sleep with once again that has me bothered. Lazarus’s story and my thirst and the forms reminding me of my mortality have had an effect. Why do I have so much when so many have so little?

This morning while my husband and daughter are worshiping with the gathered church, I have watched a video of what Samaritan’s Purse continues to do for victims of the tsunami. New homes. Water treatment centers. Job training. Hope restored to millions via very little cash.

And I watched a Gospel for Asia video about kids whose “good day” means actually finding something in the garbage heap, and how $26/month means clothing, food, education, water for “the lesser of these” made in God’s image.

Two nights of Pizza Hut delivery here buys a month of medical care, education, uniforms, daily meals and spiritual guidance for them. What if I were in their shoes? If I were them, what would I want me to do?

Many Christians worry about the “liberalism” of the “social gospel.” But here’s the question that keeps nagging me: “Shouldn’t the gospel have earth-shaking social ramifications?”

Hotel Baylor

I've been sort of weepy today. It started when I dropped off a data projector at the church because my sistahs need to borrow it for the women's retreat that I'll miss this weekend, and Pastor Lance and Pastor Mike put their arms around me and prayed for me. Virginia and Julie emailed to say they were praying and to offer their help. Our neighbors, the Kirsteins--who are keeping our girl for a couple of nights--called to arrange for her care. Then my DTS mentor, Reg, called and asked where he could find me tomorrow and prayed for me. Then I got a dozen red roses from Mary in France. And then the president of the seminary called and prayed for me. That pretty much did me in. In a good way, of course. It's humbling to be so well loved. All this after my husband promised to stay by my side.

Tomorrow morning at 6:00 I check in to Baylor Hospital and at 7:30 I am scheduled to go under the knife to try, once again, to repair a rebellious clavicle that broke in two when I fell down the stairs head first in October of last year. It apparently didn't heal after I had a bone graft off my hip last November to fix it. Last time they hollowed out the bone and used the marrow, then put the bone back in. This time they plan to cut out a piece of my hip, cut off the two ends of the clavicle, slide the hip bone in, and hope that a marrow-to-marrow engagement will encourage the bones to marry. Doc says there are no guarantees. We could be doing this again in another year! But the plate holding my severed bones together has slipped, so we have to do something.

Imagine being my surgeon. He can handle putting back together femers smashed in car accidents, but that Glahn woman's clavicle--a bone that often heals after breaking with no surgery at all--just won't cooperate!

I don't need any more books or movies. My chaplain friend, Lin (who has never steered me wrong on recommendations), sent me some Mars Hill CDs and suggested that I buy The Thirteenth Tale, which I did. And I still have the rest of the movies Heidi loaned me last time that I have yet to finish. And I plan to finish viewing all the episodes of Alias.

I'm not sure when I'll be up to posting again, but I'll either update you as I'm able or I'll give my password to a fellow blogger and ask her to do so.

The only thing our little family really needs right now is the love and prayers of friends and family, which we already know we have. Now, I'll be honest: I don't like this. But I'll be honest about something else: I know I am a blessed woman; I know this didn't surprise God; and I know we are in good hands.

So are you.

Remembering Beth

Rewind back to the 1970s. That's me standing second from the left. On the front row (l to r) are my brother, Steve; my niece, Heather; her dad, my brother David; and Beth's wonderful dog, Wheat Flower. Standing are Grama Velma (whom we all miss--she would've been 96 today); me, Beth (Heather's mom); Dad, Mom, sis Carrie, and sis Mary.

Beth, who's holding my hand, took her last breath this morning. Many of you from Dallas to Bavaria have remembered her and Heather in your thoughts and prayers as we learned in September that Beth had cancer. Thank you. Heather has continued to update a special web site, which now includes a slide show.

Dauntless Dante

So I'm taking this PhD class in Dante. Until this semester I had never read The Divine Comedy. To tell you just how unfamiliar I was with his stuff, I'll confess that, until I read it, I thought the Comedia was a synonym for "full of laughs." I missed that it was a comedy as opposed to a tragedy, where everybody dies at the end. This one ends with Dante fully alive.

In the spiritual sense.

In the world of non-fiction, when Dante was nine, he glimpsed a girl named Beatrice and fell in love. Yet it was not like Hollywood love. It was far more elevated than that. It had a spiritual element, and I don't mean the pluralistic spiritual like Oprah uses it. To borrow a term from Anne Lamott, it was a "Jesusy" love--the kind that makes you want to be gloriously good out of love for a Triune God and thus worthy of such an exalted earthly creature.

Well, Beatrice dies while in her twenties, so Dante envisions this lovely one in heaven. Now comes the part where it gets fictiony. Dante writes this vision of how he gets to the afterlife, but he is prevented by three raging animals from getting into heaven the easy way. Normally that would mean he's cooked. Literally. But Beatrice makes a way. He can get in through the back door, so to speak, but he has to traverse through hell (Inferno) and purgatory (Purgatorio) with the help of the poet, Virgil. And his journey must lead him to repentance first. Virgil begins by taking Dante on a pilgrimage in which he meets those being punished for committing the seven vices and never repenting. After that, he gets to purgatory.

Purgatorio is the world in which "shades," as they are called, purge themselves of their vices. So those who were gluttonous, for example, suffer hunger. Drunkards suffer thirst. The prideful carry a load on their backs that makes them bend over and stare at the ground. The list of vices is the same. The difference is that these repented when they had the chance. All in purgatory suffer, yet they feel no misery. Only anticipation. And the Almighty has not sent them there. They remain voluntarily so they can prepare to meet the One for whom they long with all their might: a perfectly holy, just God who is the very person of mind-blowing love. So their suffering is real but their misery is not. It's sort of like what happens when we fast on earth to devote ourselves to prayer. Yes, we feel hunger, but the hunger is by choice as an offering, so the suffering differs significantly from that experienced when craving sustenance while helplessly stuck in traffic.

Virgil delivers Dante to the ante-room of heaven, and Beatrice takes over as guide. Paradiso is a journey through the spheres of heaven during which Beatrice provides philosophical and theological answers to Dante's questions. And this woman has powers of intellect that could put Mensa members to shame. (I marvel at the genius of her creator!) In cantos six and seven, she answers the question about why Jesus had to die.

And that leads me to what happened in class on Wednesday night. There I sat in the classroom of a university in which it is generally socially acceptable to insult Christianity and Christ-followers publicly, and the prof gave us this question for a quiz: Why does Beatrice say Jesus had to die.

The short answer, which all of us had to read and figure out to articulate, is that free will is the greatest gift from God to us. But our first ancestors forfeited the freedom to be perfectly good. So to restore us to Himself, God had to somehow satisfy His own perfect justice. (He couldn't just pardon us like a judge pardoning someone with 450 traffic violations/year. That wouldn't be just.) And He could not satisfy His own justice by giving us penance to do, as no penance we could ever do with the corrupt wills we have could bridge the gap between our wrong and His perfect holiness. So He paid our debt Himself to satisfy His own justice. The second person of the Triune Godhead, in expressing perfect love and mercy, took on human flesh and sacrificed Himself so God could appease His own wrath. And in doing so He restored us to Himself with the will to do righteousness.

I believe.

Watch Out, Chicago!

 

From the End of the Pier

 

Jesus and the 12, Tiffany-style