Wine That Makes Us Stagger

In Psalm 60, the writer has a complaint to make to God.  Trouble has been piled upon trouble.  You have made your people see hard things, says verse 3; you have given us wine to drink that makes us stagger.  We're reeling!

In a recent post I tried to sum up some of the themes of Points of Inflection; the faith-based concern for the earth; the math and the climbing; the sound of lamentation, most recently and personally in the loss of our dear child; cancer as a metaphor, and my own cancer struggles in 2014.  When I wrote that post, our cup of trouble was full.  Since then it has been overflowed by further news, the wine that makes us stagger; my cancer has returned in a different part of the body, and we are facing an uncertain future.

I wanted to mention this on Points of Inflection once, but I am not this time going to be blogging regularly about my personal health news here.  Instead, I have established a private web site at Caring Bridge which you're welcome to visit for updates. The address is

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/johnxroe

and you need to establish an account at Caring Bridge to log in and view news updates.   Meanwhile, I will continue posting here on the regular subjects of this blog.  I think it will be helpful to keep health news separated.

Right now Liane and I are on vacation and enjoying time together in California.  If you're the praying kind (actually, even if you're not) we value your prayers for us.

Seek the Welfare of the City

Where do I belong?

© 2007 Tracy Hunter, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

One of the great, haunting images of the book of Hebrews - stretched out over three chapters, from 11 to 13 - is an extended portrayal of believers as strangers and exiles upon the earth.   Let us go to Jesus, says the writer, outside the camp, and bear the reproach that he endured.  For, here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.   Let us not become too comfortable here, settling down, rounding out, accumulating privilege.  Our job is to run a race, to go through a great shaking-up - in order that things that cannot be shaken shall remain.

Christians! Stand Up For Our Trans* Siblings!

Okay, I shouldn't be writing this. I am not transgender (that is to say, I do not experience a mismatch between my gender identity and my birth-assigned sex). I'm a privileged, heterosexual, white guy. Stop listening to me.  Go listen to some actual transgender Christian people like the ones listed in this post instead.