Phil mentioned several of my favorite blogs in his Thinking Blogger nominations. I might add Gene Edward Veith’s personal blog at World Magazine, The Recliner Commentaries, and S. T. Karnick.

Whew. I came home tonight and found my renter here, unloading another carload of personal stuff. If I hadn’t seen him tonight, I had a tentative plan to start nosing through his personal possessions in the hope of finding a phone number I could call to check on him. Apparently he’s just making a graduated move.

Another glorious day in my favorite season of the year. Not as warm as yesterday, only a click above sixty, but very nice for my evening walk. It would have been perfect if it weren’t for the subject matter on the radio…

Not that Hugh Hewitt isn’t handling it like a champ. He’s hanging up on the second-guessers and finger-pointers. He’s concentrating on talking about the victims, and about how people can help the survivors. Very classy. Hewitt at his best.

He brought David Allen White on to talk about suffering, and White touched on a thought that has intrigued me for some time. He read from Colossians 1:24:

“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (NIV)

“How can anything be lacking in Christ’s sufferings?” we ask. Here’s what the passage says to me. I don’t insist on it, and I’m open to correction.

But it looks to me as if this means that Christ’s suffering is still going on. I don’t mean His suffering for our sins. I believe that’s finished, complete. But He also is the Head of His Body, the Church. When we, the parts of the Body, suffer, the Head suffers. In that sense His sufferings will not end until the coming of the Kingdom. Therefore none of us who are in Christ suffer alone.

I remember reading long ago about a female martyr (I forget who) who was warned by her judge of the terrible sufferings she faced. She replied, in so many words, “I am one with my Lord, and it will not be me who suffers. It will be Him suffering for me.”

I don’t know if I’d have the courage to make such a statement of faith, but I like the sound of it.

Here’s a story I can’t pass up. Christian gunmen shot up a New Jersey school and took a few hostages in retaliation for one of their daughters being expelled for public prayer. At least, that’s how the terrorism simulation played out in a New Jersey high school last month. Don’t want to rile up folks over Muslim militants. No, sir. Christians, “who don’t believe in separation of church and state,” are a hair-trigger away from all out war. It’s a wonder they don’t preach on street corners while shooting down various people groups to which Revs. Sharpton and Jackson have referred in the past (audio link).

In related news, The European Union wants to avoid using words which link terrorism with Islam. Words such as “Jihad,” “Islamist” and “fundamentalist” are disfavored now.

Here’s a story I can’t pass up. Christian gunmen shot up a New Jersey school and took a few hostages in retaliation for one of their daughters being expelled for public prayer. At least, that’s how the terrorism simulation played out in a New Jersey high school last month. Don’t want to rile up folks over Muslim militants. No, sir. Christians, “who don’t believe in separation of church and state,” are a hair-trigger away from all out war. It’s a wonder they don’t preach on street corners while shooting down various people groups to which Revs. Sharpton and Jackson have referred in the past (audio link).

In related news, The European Union wants to avoid using words which link terrorism with Islam. Words such as “Jihad,” “Islamist” and “fundamentalist” are disfavored now.

This post will probably be completely incoherent, as I’m working under a time deadline. I have a Viking Age Society meeting tonight.

Actually, I have plenty of time to write this, but you never know what will happen. I might get an attack of writer’s block and have to leave without posting. I might have a sudden toilet explosion and have to spend the evening with a plunger and towels.

Worry as globally as possible, that’s my motto. Because disasters are always so much more bearable if you’ve worried yourself sick about them in advance.

Also I’m not entirely sure I haven’t posted on this subject before. But if I did it was a long time ago, and who remembers? That’s the upside of writing ephemera.

Anyway, thinking along the lines of my post last night, I thought I’d mention one point on which I differ (I think) with C.S. Lewis.

(That sound you hear is everyone who knows me intaking breath. [Taking in breath? Performing an intake of breath? Clumsy. Clumsy whichever way you go. Replace it or let it stand? Let it stand. I’m in a hurry here.]) I’m well known to be one of those Christian English majors who have trouble telling the works of CSL apart from canonical scripture.

But Lewis says in several places (I’d look it up, but like I said I’m sweating under a deadline here. High R-factor in those deadlines) that Jesus Christ introduced no new ethical ideas. And this is a good thing, in his view (and in mine) because good and evil are universal, and have been recognized, in generally recognizable forms, throughout all cultures throughout all history.

But I think Christ did introduce one fresh, unprecedented teaching. One teaching that no one had presented before. And that was personal humility in relation to one’s neighbor.

Other religions have taught humility before God. But Christ (correct me if I’m wrong) was the first to say, “You should treat your neighbor as if you were his servant. You should do nothing to defend your personal honor.”

Remember, you read it here first.

Unless you didn’t.

Hey, I’m done! In plenty of time, too!

Now I can worry about something else. Computer crash. Traffic accident on the way to the meeting tonight. I’ll come up with something.