I learned from Michael Wilson’s blog that the San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone had called on the Catholic Church to deny Communion to prominent pro-abortion Catholics.
I agree with Archbishop Cordileone, but would add a twist to his call making it relevant even for non-Catholics: All Christians should advisethose who are pro-abortion to refrain from Communion until they have repented.
Does that sound harsh?
What would be harsh would be Satan’s accusations full of finger-pointing and despair with no hope of forgiveness on the other side. However, this call is different. It is a call to the discomfort of repentance and the liberation of change where pardon replaces that crash into the brick wall.
May I from truth not wish to stray. What’s unknown underlies each whim on which I float, through which I swim, until I find a better way, repent, and pray this time I may have turned from weakness to what’s right. My day presumes a previous night where darkness showed me odd-ball dreams I thought were pure till morning’s beams contrasted evil with good light.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “whim” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
Although Rebekah told Isaac of the prophecy she received that Jacob, the second-born of her twins and her favorite, was to receive the blessing, as the boys matured Esau, the first-born and Isaac’s favorite, seemed to Isaac better able to carry any burdens his blessing might require.
In his old age with failing eyesight, Isaac decided to give the blessing to Esau rather than Jacob without telling Rebekah, but she overheard his plan and improvised one of her own. She prepared the meal Isaac requested from Esau, covered Jacob’s arms with fur to imitate Esau’s hairy skin and dressed him in Esau’s clothing to deceive her husband. Not even Jacob, willing though he was to go along with it, thought her plan would work, but it did.
After realizing he had been fooled, Isaac reluctantly remembered the prophecy and remained faithful to it reaffirming the blessing he unwittingly gave to Jacob. Esau, however, wanted revenge and so Rebekah convinced Isaac to send Jacob off on the pretext of finding a suitable wife, not one like Esau found among the locals, knowing that she would likely never see Jacob again.
Denise offers the prompt “improvise” for this week’s Six Sentence Story.
A more complete and accurate description of what happened to Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob begins at Genesis 25:19. The insight that Rebekah did not see Jacob again came from Pastor Colin Smith’s sermon last Sunday.
I don’t know what I’d do with gold unless it’s for a wedding ring. A garden would be more my thing with plants whose leaves were green and bold. Between us there’s much fruit to hold. We offer praise and share our meals. We watch and pray. The truth reveals our next assignments. See the ways this paradise fulfills our days and how each day renews and heals.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “gold” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.
Rafael walked home with his daughter, Celia, to bring her back to her mother. Celia told him about Derek, and she wondered how he knew so much about him? Rafael didn’t think he knew much at all.
They climbed the stairs to the second story apartment wondering what Celia’s mother would say or do when she saw her daughter again after two years. The silence of their searching eyes overcame the hardened words and deeds from their memories. Then tears restored their lost connection.
There’s quicksand by the pearly gates for those who wander off the way, who love the breezy, sleazy mud. Then pleasure pops – another dud. On pins and needles now they say, “Let’s try again!” And there they stay.
If one has a closed natural system where nothing can enter to support it from the outside, the system will run down. Any order will become disorder in a finite amount of time. Entropy is a measure of disorder.
In naturalistic or materialistic worldviews the universe we live in is supposed to be such a closed system. There is nothing outside it. Or, if there is, that supernatural stuff can’t break through the boundaries of the closed system to offer support.
In the Christian worldview not only is there an outside to the universe but that outside is powerful, willing and intelligent enough to both create the universe and make an ongoing difference to it. The material universe is not closed in this worldview although it could be hypothetically viewed as closed to study what would happen to it assuming the outside did not intervene.
For example, if we assumed nothing would stop erosion, weathering and traffic from the outside, we could ask how long the hypothetically closed system of the rock formations in the photo above would remain intact? No one doubts that there is intelligence outside this system of rock formations. Just by studying the system we are that intelligence outside it. After a study is made other people powerful and willing enough could use the findings to implement policies to preserve the formations. All of that study and preservation comes from outside this system of rock formations intervening to alter what would happen to it if those formations were left alone.
If we supposed that our universe were closed with no outside support, the main mystery would be how our universe came to be. With entropy we cannot claim that our universe had always been here to avoid addressing its origin. If our universe were infinitely old, it would have run down by now. Furthermore, any popping of ordered reality out of nothing or even out of less ordered stuff would require an explanation how that popping could increase orderliness without the assistance of some outside intelligence.
In the past it was believed that random mutations filtered through natural selection could serve as the mechanism allowing living organisms within a closed universe to evolve into ever more complex organisms without help from the outside. The change coming from random mutations would be mindlessly directed by natural selection to achieve this. R. A. Fisher even offered a mathematical proof that it would work.
However, with further study of mutation-selection the opposite is now known to happen. This perpetual motion mechanism is not what we thought it was. Even Fisher’s Theorem has been flipped by William F. Basener and John C. Sanford. The following podcast with John Sanford puts this in perspective.
Rather than describing a means by which evolution could occur mutation-selection describes the mechanism behind genetic entropy. Without outside help, living species in a closed system not only do not evolve into super-species, they run down just like everything else does. At some point in their genome degeneration they go extinct.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 