Even an inadequate one feels good

There is something reassuring about being offered a job, even one with a compensation package significantly lower than that of my last position. It feels good to have made such an impression upon a potential employer that they called me back with an offer the same day. It really isn't adequate for our needs, though, let alone our goals. Still, it could be worth taking for the rest of the year, if nothing else develops very quickly here.

We'll see . . .

Today's word

vilipend \VIL-uh-pend\ - 1. to hold or treat as of little worth or account : contemn  2. to express a low opinion of : disparage

What a great new word, and one to which I fear I am entirely too prone, in its first sense. I think that the most important part of Pope Francis' messages to us involve being on guard against this tendency.

Some days . . .

. . . I should just stay away from the comments on Carolyn Hax's posts.

Today was one of those days.

Every autumn is the same

And I hate it.

Easier renouncing in my dreams

Just before waking, I dreamed an impure dream. It was not with anyone I know, but my wife was watching, encouraging even, as I  reveled in an activity that has only been a fantasy. In the midst of my dream, as my bride began an act for which I have begged her, I rejected the dream activity as not being God's will for me. In essence, I broke away from the dream.

I am having a harder time doing the same thing upon waking.

The role of self-identification

Simply identifying myself first as a follower of Jesus Christ is not the end of spiritual battle. It turns out that there are many other ways that we self-identify that also play a key role in our spiritual life, too. When we accept as unchangeable aspects of ourselves things that God would have us shed - a tendency to superiority, desires that are not God's revealed will for us, unbridled anger - we give them a power over us that interferes with the transformation that should be ours in Christ Jesus. 

When we have done this, turning loose of them can require more than just deciding otherwise. We will likely need to renounce the lie that has warped us, and any spiritual influence that has taken root in our lives as the result of it. 

I seem to have gotten too busy to write.