The Opposite of Forgiveness is Entitlement

A friend (Julie Wright-Silander) tweeted this:

The opposite of forgiveness is entitlement.

Deep.  Very Deep.  A day later and I'm still pondering it.  I'm just trying to unpack this so pardon my rambling.


First up is forgiveness:
forgiving debts; forgiving for wrongs.  It carries that something is owed (money or reparations) and the item/gap is removed without payment.  I owe something to another and they close the gap without my filling it.  It is granted by the person in power.


Then the entitlement:
a given credit; owing of something expected.  I think it carries that I'm owed something by people in possession of the power to give it.  I am due something by another; they have to fill the gap. 



The -ness and -ment are about the attitude of each.  An attitude that I owed something and have been graced out of it.  Conversely is the attitude that something is owed to me and others work(s) must fill it.

I guess I have to agree, they are opposites.
 

Optimism of the age

This was posted on FB and struck me, so I'm just reposted:

"ALL the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do NOT fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a m...onstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the WRONG place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home."

~G.K. Chesterton ("Orthodoxy")

Ho-Hey MLK

Martin Luther King Jr day is coming up.  I look to this day and I like to read some of the MLK Jr sermons.  He didn't shy away from issues, but that was out of his belief that God cared for justice and cared for people.  To me it's a shame how he has been whitewashed to caring about issues and not really believing in God.

I read a short biography that described him as a civil rights leader inspired by Ghandi.  Let's not forget that he didn't merely deliver speeches, he preached.  He delivered God's message, not his own.


The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems. Many will continue to come in quest of answers to life’s problems. Many young people who knock on the door are perplexed by the uncertainties of life, confused by daily disappointments, and disillusioned by the ambiguities of history. Some who come have been taken from their schools and careers and cast in the role of soldiers. We must provide them with the fresh bread of hope and imbue them with the conviction that God has the power to bring good out of evil. Some who come are tortured by a nagging guilt resulting from their wandering in the midnight of ethical relativism and their surrender to the doctrine of self-expression. We must lead them to Christ who will offer them the fresh bread of forgiveness. Some who knock are tormented by the fear of death as they move toward the evening of life. We must provide them with the bread of faith in immortality, so that they may realize that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening.

Eureka (x3)

Yesterday was an epiphany day.  I had quite a few ideas hit me that were significant.  If not major leaps in various journeys they were at least solid milestones. 

#1 - Screw It
While driving to work I was pondering a particular consistent design sticking point.  Our machines spin a cutting head against a metal bar that is shoved through the center.  Metal doesn't like to fall off so it take some power and it generates much heat.  So we shoot coolant on the cutting.  It has been most effective to sneak in some spray from the back to shoot directly where the cut is happening. We use a spray tube (in teal below) which has some coolant lines running to a nozzle ring.  The hard part is reaching however far (15"? 30"?) between the bar and the spinning tube holding the cutterhead.  Some chips and coolant can get stuck between the spray tube and the inside of the spindle sleeve.  Over time this can build up and cause troubles.






So my bright idea was to thread the inside of the spindle.  This would make it's rotation act like a pump and drive all the built up junk to the back or to the front (we're still kicking around which is better).  This could be a huge step in making my companies machines run better and longer.


#2 - Book It
My son loves graphic novels and comic books.  Who doesn't.  Becky is excellent at regular trips to the library to keep the kids loaded up on good materials.  It was something I never had, never did, and would be terrible at starting now.

She brought home a book called "Tommysaurus Rex" by Doug TenNapel. To call that a good story is to call the moon a nice rock.  There is so much more - location, movement, details.  It is a graphic novel that Caleb stayed up WAY too late reading (he read the book twice).  I read it on day 2 in our house (25 minutes) and was blown away. 

So I started digging into the author and the more I see the more I like.  I have much to investigate.


#3 Curse It
Becky & I do devotionals during the week.  It used to be mornings but then work got hectic and I started going in extra early so devotions migrated to evenings.  Devotionals for couples is a tough area to find a quality book.

I've found that some devotional books are fight starters - "have you stopped ignoring your wife?" "how can you be more involved in church?".  These questions start loaded with attacking a deficiency.  Sometimes the problem isn't there and don't just tell me to work harder.

Maybe I get like Goldilocks in that some are too light and too heavy also.  10-15minutes is the right length of time for these.  We won't have 2 hours to discuss sprinkling vs. immersion.

The devotional yesterday was spot on.  It wrapped up a discussion about primary male and female differences.  Men are more task driven and women are relationship driven.  The author referred to this as men seeking significance and women seeking intimacy.  The day before I thought the "significance" drive was pretty profound, and Becky let me know "intimacy" was pretty accurate. 

This made me re-evaluate the curse when Adam & Eve were cast from the garden.  I had always thought of the curse (especially Adam's) as external.  Adam toiled over the ground because it wouldn't grow easy.  I'm wondering if Adam toils over the ground because growing is a job.  In trying to be like God, he became bent to try to seek significance in something other than God.  I thought of Eve being cursed in that childbearing would just now be painful.  I didn't think of it as the emotional pain in trying to achieve closeness "your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

I don't think it is an either/or proposition that the curse was only external or internal.  I just never thought about the internals (emotional, mental) of being cursed.