The late Summer and early Fall of 2006 marked a turning point in these 7 Years of Sundays. I will let this (and perhaps a few other) summary entries span those months for a couple of reasons.

1.      This part of the journey was defined by an un-folding drama I referred to having begun back in January. The details of this journey need to remain private.

2.      In addition, there are so MANY details, that this blog would become a bog.

3.      The details frankly aren’t important as they relate to the goal of this blog: contextualize a 7 year season in one man’s life.

So here’s the stuff that seems to matter that came out of the Fall of ’06:

Sin is sin. Even those of us who try really hard and with the best of intentions to avoid creating a higherarchy of bad behavior, still do. But once you find yourself really drowning in the cold waters of sin…convinced that life as you know it is about to end; looking around for someone to blame or someone who is worse off than you can finally be seen for it’s true value: nothing.

I learned via the most visceral and kinesthetic means I can imagine that the line between “offender” and “victim” is a fiction for most of us. Certainly for me. Yes, there are VICTIMS of war and poverty and bad policy around the globe. No one brings brain cancer on themselves; calling them VICTIM is accurate. But I’m not talking about that kind of thing. I’m talking about how we judge each other. How we hold up “this” or “that” and compare it to some template of justice to determine whether OUR hardship has earned us the right to lord it over others. It’s the national past time of the USA and it has been refined to an art form in the church, and I am guilty of doing it.

World, please forgive me.