Never praise someone just because they've fulfilled their moral obligations - don't confuse obligation with liberty and certainly not with virtue.
If you want to play your music very loud and your neighbour does not want to hear it, you are not being virtuous if you turn it down for his or her sake. Not encroaching on the peace of others should surely be seen as a basic requirement.
There are scales - people who do not appreciate what they already have, conceptually build up their desires until they become needs become rights.
Considering others - or better, putting others first, goes from being an obligation to a liberty to a virtue.
Moral standards slip. As soon as a society starts to tolerate a vice, pressure groups will ensure that it will gain acceptance until it becomes an open embrace (or promotion).
The Scriptures set standards: do not let those standards slip. My Bible does not describe a a progression from conservative to liberal to anarchist, but from mercy to covenant to deliverance.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
All you need is love... and an AK-47
Just a short post about a moment in a dream.
I was watching the news during some huge, epic battle scene from an armageddon style scenario and a police marksman was there struggling to hold back his battle creature - like some great guard dog and horse rolled into one... and the rain was tearing down into everyone's faces. And in that moment of stillness the soldier took one of his hands, his other still cradling his assault rifle, and gently stroked the build up of rain and sleep out of the corner of his animal companion's eye. And despite all the noise and terror going on around there was just that moment - a small detail you could almost miss, yet it was the most significant feeling or sight to be absorbed in. The love between this soldier - a great, big, powerful man, purposely desensitised to his feelings - and his great, big, powerful friend - his dog - his horse - it doesn't matter which...
I woke up and thought "wow - there's an amazing job - being an animal handler in the police or army. What a sense of purpose and love and I think I'll write about it on my blog because I'm not about to change career, but I can at least write it down".
All you need is love / G_d
I was watching the news during some huge, epic battle scene from an armageddon style scenario and a police marksman was there struggling to hold back his battle creature - like some great guard dog and horse rolled into one... and the rain was tearing down into everyone's faces. And in that moment of stillness the soldier took one of his hands, his other still cradling his assault rifle, and gently stroked the build up of rain and sleep out of the corner of his animal companion's eye. And despite all the noise and terror going on around there was just that moment - a small detail you could almost miss, yet it was the most significant feeling or sight to be absorbed in. The love between this soldier - a great, big, powerful man, purposely desensitised to his feelings - and his great, big, powerful friend - his dog - his horse - it doesn't matter which...
I woke up and thought "wow - there's an amazing job - being an animal handler in the police or army. What a sense of purpose and love and I think I'll write about it on my blog because I'm not about to change career, but I can at least write it down".
All you need is love / G_d
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