Why have I always got the impression this means either we should somehow try to be weak, or else make ourselves realise that we are weak?

Paul says when I am weak, then I am strong at the end of this passage, not when I am strong then I am weak.  The sequence is this.  First, Paul is struggling.  He is aware of his weakness already and isn’t trying to conjure up some way of making himself feel weak.  Second, he turns to God and God answers that His strength is made perfect in weakness.

Aside: The context here is grace, but the word strength is used also, indicating that this concept applies in other situations where our own strength is insufficient.  Besides, why limit grace to morality?  Anyway I think modern Christian culture in general sees this as applying to more than moral weakness, which is good.

Third, Paul turns around and says when he is weak, he is strong.

This is important to me, because if I believe I am weak, I see myself as less responsible and also less empowered.  If God tells me to trust Him and that I am strong, I am able to be strong in the midst of weakness.  I am able to do the work of love knowing that God is strong when I am weak, and he has made me strong.

There is a huge difference between that interpretation and the debilitating way in which it is often interpreted, a way that makes us afraid to try because it seems unholy to use any strength at all.  I understand that sometimes we need to be shown our own weakness, but that is not what these verses are about.  The context is that of already acknowledged weakness.  It can still be used to give us strength to acknowledge weakness since it tells us that God is there to catch us, but maybe when using it in that context we should be careful to ensure that the person who needs to acknowledge weakness focusses on the strength they can receive in order to accept the fact that they are weak.  The object must always be to grace us with strength.

For one reason or another, everyone will at times have thoughts that spiral downwards.  Against this stands faith, but what if the thoughts that fall are those intricitally linked to our individual formation of faith?  Then love.  Love from the heart.  Love the things that inspire us* and let this love instruct your faith; move hopefully away.

* The world is full of good signs.  Those that instil a sense of worship are probably the ones that most easily lead us out of the prisons we build.

I remember fondly. It was one of the best mornings, lazing in bed, having breakfast served to me, I knew it was going to be a romantic one. I can’t remember what context spurred the utterance, but suddenly it was over. ‘Saying “Farty” ruins everything!” she said, and that was that.

I’ve finally decided on my New Year’s Resolution. This is why I haven’t written anything in so long, or actually done anything at all since January started in fact. The problem was that I couldn’t figure out what to do and there is no point in doing something with no resolve in your heart. If I’ve learned anything from looking up at the stars, it’s that (well, that and nuclear fusion, which I admit I did notice first and asked my Dad if it wasn’t a mad sort of thing to be happening altogether). Anyway, as you get older you learn more complicated stuff like how to avoid doing what other people want by doing nothing at all until you have your own idea about what you want to do and how you have to think of that at the very start of the year or else it’s all a waste and how if you make things hard to read, people often think you’re describing something complex so you must be good at writing and deserve a Nobel Prize (I still have my eyes on that baby) and this might lead to getting money without actually doing very much for other people, so you can employ someone to go to the shops and buy you cake, but it doesn’t always work.

So my resolution is to go around and be clever about anything I do. Not to become popular, because that’s shallow. It just gives me something to concentrate on when I have to spend time with others. The first step is to say everything in a slanted kind of way, using metaphors like, “Here, that bookcase is starting to look like London Bridge”, so when the bookcase flattens them I’ve managed to warn them but in a way that doesn’t ruin a potential moment of comedy, and also teaches them that if they were clever like me, they won’t get hurt. I’ll call it my spiritual journey: “the clever way” and people will flock to my door.

Yes, but that doesn’t really get me any closer to my cake. This has been bothering me since the year started. No matter what resolution I come up with, it doesn’t actually prove that I should even have a cake. But I want one. Is this all my complex genetic structure, honed over thousands of years, has managed to achieve? A deep desire for, cake? No, I must find some deeper justification for it, something that means I can stand by what I really want my New Years Resolution to be, deep down. And then I can finally start the new year.

You don’t. Trust is only necessary when knowledge is unavailable. There should always be indicators but there can never be proof. For example the phrase, “I trust that I am aware of this sentence” is interpreted as “I know that I am aware of this sentence” and use of the word “trust” in that context may be interpreted as indicating that knowledge is a starting point for trust.

A more useful question might be “What do I know that gives me an indication that I can trust you?” I trust this is what you mean by your question.

For your answer, you can have no scientific proof because I am not confined to a lab and if you put me in one, I assure you the answer to your question will be, “No”.

I’ve started reading blogs again. Zoomtard always reminds me of how unfair this world is. Why Calvin and not me?

And why did someone else have such a good year? Obviously this is the kind of thing that happens when you do what your parent (heavenly) tells you. Why am I the one to always get it wrong? It’s God’s fault anyway. He made me be like this. He made me.

Jesus says, spend more time with me, and I say, but I’ve got so much to do (because he made me say that). Anyway when I look around I notice he was actually on the phone to Martha so his comment wasn’t directed at me. It takes me a year before I realise working doesn’t work. Or maybe it just takes an actual holiday where I get time to listen, reflect and think. Christmas actually turned out to be about Christ this year for me, ridiculously.

Maybe 2009 will be better. I’m not going to make a new years resolution to open my heart and mind to what is Real instead of getting caught up in duty, because of predestination. I don’t need to try. After all, I was obviously destined to get closer to God by the end of 2008 and it happened in the end even though I didn’t do what I was told.

Wait, didn’t I make that mistake last year?

Your correspondent – re-writing other people’s punchlines. But not re-using them, no, that wouldn’t make me look good.

That’s right, Movember, the month where I grow a moustache for charity. “Shouldn’t you be ashamed of yourself, growing a moustache in this day and age?” some of you will say to me and I retort, “NO! I’m not ASHAMED, FOR IT IS IN THE NAME OF LOVE that I do this, the name of LOVE! And if you don’t sell everything you have and give to this charity you can’t be my friend.” Jesus said something similar, so why can’t I? I’m in the know. Now I don’t want to come across like those chuggers (charity muggers) you see and try to avoid on the street, but I will have your money. You see shame is precisely the problem here, shame of owning some porn-star’s moustache, shame of checking your prostate out in case it’s got cancer, shame of not giving to charity. Same thing. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just helping you and everyone else to overcome shame.

If you really want to be my friend, you’ll identify with me in my suffering and help raise awareness of this issue so that less people will die of prostate cancer, but mostly because you are my friend right? Just as I have laid down my ego for those who haven’t, so you can lay down your money to help spread the word about the consequences, sort of an attractive idealist coupled with hellfire and brimstone thing, a combination that works great.

And no, growing the mo will not give me prostate cancer. (don’t worry)

I think it is a good idea to show you my progress so far so here is a photo of what I look like now, 11 days in. Because I am a man of sensibility and I know some of you are people of taste, I’ve spared you from actually having to hurt your eyes though. It’s amazing what you can do with photoshop.

If you really want to see what I look like, why not come and see me, you haven’t been in touch in ages you old abbreviated “Basket of Turd“.

But seriously, if you don’t want to give that’s fine. Do be aware that I will be sending you an “IT’S YOUR FAULT” note every time someone dies because you could have helped but didn’t. If you do want to give, click here. If this doesn’t help let me know and I’ll sort something out.

Well, now that you’ve been manipulated I feel safe to leave you alone and get back to housework. Yes, Movember is also the month where Curly D does her second teaching practice, preparation for which takes up all her time. I have been told to remove the various types of mould I’ve been cultivating and I’m running out of excuses. Let’s see, I’ve used the “It’s an experiment” one,

Ah, how fortunate, I can’t clean up any mould because the scrubber to clean it with is covered in mould. Saved again!

I’m sorry for calling it a heap of junk. My wife wishes to remind me that her borrowed bike is a “Giant”, a very respected brand. It is a good bike. It became a heap of junk the moment my attempt to overcome the tiny crank arms and flat tires (by standing hard on them while shifting gears) caused the chain to jump and my left knee to smash into the head tube. Actually to be honest, it became a heap of junk of lower than average intelligence at this precise moment, but I had decided that remark was unfair by the time I reached home.

Did you ever get that feeling of waking up dislexic when it is very very important for you not to be? I did, this morning. Next I had that feeling where you go to use your backup plan and find you left it locked to the bicycle rack in work and you have to ride a piece of junk to get on top. Except it wasn’t exactly that feeling either. There was also an underlying sense of coughing and spluttering with the “flu” for fifteen minutes while pumping my legs against that aforementioned painfully resistent piece of junk. Lastly there was the irritating impression at the back of my mind that YOU were lying there snug in your bed, while in fact this was probably all your fault (did you have a cold recently? At the very least it was you who gave me this cold you know), and that even when I complain about it you would probably play the air violin and mockingly rub your finger under your eye, wiping away invisible tears. Even the invisible tears have no sympathy. The very essence of nothingness has no sympathy for me never mind anything real, leaving me without even the imaginary pretence that you care. I’ve never even suffered from dislexia before. Why just this once, when it mattered? The only explanation is that it is a form of devine vengeance for failing to prove God’s existence to QMonkey.

Phew, just got to answer before it stopped ringing. Hello? Hello? What the? No one there.

Oh no, I did it again, used the wrong medium of communication. Listen, just ring me back again, I got confused, thought it was the internet ringing when it was actually the phone.

Anyone else ever have this happen to them? Modern technology is so confusing.