Chesterton on whether love is blind
The world tells us that we shouldn’t try to change those we love, that if we really love them then we will be able to look past their faults. Love, we are told, is blind.
G.K. Chesterton knew better. As he explained in Orthodoxy “Love is not blind; that is the last thing it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.” If we love only because we believe our spouse to be perfect, then what will happen when their faults are found out? That sort of “love” will fall to pieces.
But if there is commitment – if the two are bound tightly as one – then there is no need for blindness. Then we can acknowledge our flaws, and as a couple work together to fight them. In love we can help one another’s sanctification. Bound is so much better than blind.
How many types of people?
While there are just two types of people in the world – those willing to ask for directions, and men – that has become a contentious point.
But after doing some extensive research we’ve discovered that even as the binary nature of Mankind is being disputed in the broader culture, in the world of humor the consensus still leans heavily towards just two.
- There are 10 types of people in the world: those who get binary and those who don’t.
- There are 3 types of people in the world: those that can count and those that can’t.
- There are 2 types of people in the world: those who have the paper come up over the toilet roll, and monsters.
- There are 2 types of people in the world: those who think there are 2 types of people in the world, and those who don’t.
- There are 2 types of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data
- There are 2 types of people in the world: those who finish jokes…
The quotable Churchill
Britain’s bulldog was never short of witticisms worth pondering.
- “In politics when you are in doubt what to do, do nothing… when you are in doubt what to say, say what you really think.”
- “The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
- “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
If you were to invent a god…
There are many invented gods and the inventions are easy to spot. Like most fiction, they are based on what the authors already knew. Consider the Greek and Romans gods: petty, combative, lustful and jealous… just like us. These gods had very human foibles and follies, only magnified.
But, as Charles Colson notes in his book God and Government the one true God is very different.
“…for those who insist that God is created by man, perhaps the most telling argument is to consider the nature and character of the God revealed in the Bible. If we were making up our own god, would we create one with such absolute demands for justice, righteousness, service, and self-sacrifice as we find in the biblical texts? (As someone has said, Moses didn’t come down from the mountain with the Ten Suggestions!)
“Would Israel’s powerful elite have concocted such declarations as, ‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy…Is that not what it means to know me?’ Would the pious New Testament religious establishment have created a God who condemned them for their own hypocrisy? Would even a zealous disciple have invented a Messiah who called His followers to sell all, give their possessions to the poor, and follow Him to their deaths? The skeptic who believes the Bible’s human authors manufactured their God out of psychological need has not read the Scriptures carefully.”
Teaching our kids media literacy
“As your kids get a little older, if they want to spend time consuming media, get into the habit of rather than saying yes or no, instead say, ‘Convince me.’ Ask them to articulate why a specific TV show, movie, or game benefits their life in some way. This is not to be glib, but to really hear what they have to say. It forces them to not treat media time as a default mode, but to see it as a privilege that impacts their hearts and minds.”
– Luke Gilkerson, in his free e-book Parenting the Internet Generation. (You do have to give your name and email address but it is highly recommended.)
Geoffrey Chaucer on the pull of porn on your kids too
Some parents make the mistake of thinking it is only bad kids – other people’s kids – who get sucked in by the lure of pornography. Well, Geoffrey Chaucer has a thought for you.
Ful ofte tyme I rede that no man truste in his owene perfeccioun, but he be stronger than Sampson, and hoolier than David, and wiser than Salomon.
If you didn’t quite catch that, here’s an updated version:
I’ve read that no man should trust his own perfection unless he is stronger than Sampson, and holier than David, and wiser than Solomon.
These here are the strongest, wisest, and most devoted, men in the Bible and they all succumbed to sexual sin. Do we really think our kids are so much better than them? Let’s not be that naïve (1 Cor. 10:12).
While our children are not strong enough to stand up to temptation on their own, they can run to Jesus, relying on His strength and not their own. This means regularly talking to Him in prayer and hearing from Him by reading His Word. We also need to teach our children how to use God-given wisdom in fleeing digital sin by using accountability partners (Eccl 4:12), or by going to the seemingly extreme measures of “cutting off” (Matt. 5:29-30) certain apps, and eliminating or severely curtailing their smartphone or Internet access.
But we can’t go on doing nothing, and pretending our kids are, “stronger than Sampson…holier than David, and wiser than Solomon.”
