Journaling is one of my forms of self-therapy. I regularly vent, ponder, reflect and sometimes just record things I’ve done or the state of my mind and heart. Often I try out ideas I might want to blog about in my journal and then go back and explore them further and in more “polished” form. But today I just want to share what I wrote last evening about an issue that has been troubling me and messing up my faith journey for quite some time. I may return to this later and share my progress on it, but in the meantime I welcome comments and insights. Here’s what I wrote about 10 pm last night:
“Heard an excellent sermon on I Corinthians 13 today from one of our pastors, Mebane McMahon, and even before she preached I heard conviction in the reading of the text about my own failure to “endure, believe, hope all things.” My anger at Trump and his gang is eating at me and that’s not the Gospel. I remember one of my mentors “Bogie” Dunn talking about people we least want to include already being in God’s house – his example was Nixon and for me it’s Donald J. Trump There was a time early in his term that I was able to pray for President Trump by name but haven’t done that in months now. I have also forgotten to remind myself that I am and he is too a child of God. Something has made him the angry, racist, sexist, dishonest person he is and to try and understand that, which I am sure I never will, is more valuable than just anger and hate at his behavior, no matter how evil I think it is. He is still redeemable – if that is not true then the Gospel is false and we are all doomed. Those are hard truths to embrace but if I want that kind of grace for myself then I have to be willing to affirm and share it for everyone. And that means everyone. “I believe Lord, help my unbelief.”
Peacefully Harsh 
Steve
To me evil is evil
Redemption or grace comes through God being sought by the recipient
Do not see Donald on that path
His version of grace seems like The Father saying to the son who is being spanked
This hurting me more than you
Maybe good in theory
Hobs
On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 4:21 PM Peacefully Harsh wrote:
> Steve Harsh posted: “Journaling is one of my forms of self-therapy. I > regularly vent, ponder, reflect and sometimes just record things I’ve done > or the state of my mind and heart. Often I try out ideas I might want to > blog about in my journal and then go back and explore th” >
thanks Hobs. You make great point as usual. Glad it’s not our job to decide what’s evil, but as you know I share your feelings about our President.
I certainly can relate, as was evident in our conversations in Baltimore. In a sermon from August, I reflected with our congregation that if God’s love and grace are incarnate in all of God’s creations that means even the folks we have the most trouble with. I didn’t mention Trump by name, but a couple of folks commented after the sermon that they were having trouble believing God’s love and grace could be incarnate in him, or some of his cronies. But we concluded that if it’s true for us it must be true for him. I guess that’s the grace part. It also gives us something positive to look for in him (and ourselves). Also, interestingly, I referenced Bogie in this sermon. He had a big impact on lots of us.
thanks for sharing. It’s a journey for sure. Very interesting about Bogie and his continuing impact even now.