Salvation Is A Gift Given, Not A

The Truth That Makes Us Free Is Always Ticking Away Like A Time-bomb In The Basement Of Everybody's Church.

The Reason For Not Going Out And Sinning All You Like Is The Same As The Reason For Not Going Out And Putting Your Nose In A Slicing Machine: Its Dumb, Stupid, And No Fun. Some Individual Sins May Have Pleasure Still Attached To Them Because Of The Residual Goodness Of The Realities They Are Abusing: Adultery Can Indeed Be Pleasant And Tying One On Can Amuse. But Betrayal, Jealousy, Love Grown Cold, And The Gray Dawn Of The Morning After Are Nobody's Idea Of A Good Time.

We Are So Impressed By Scientific Clank That We Feel We Ought Not To Say That The Sunflower Turns Because It Knows Where The Sun Is. It Is Almost Second Nature To Us To Prefer Explanations . . . With A Large Vocabulary. We Are Much More Comfortable When We Are Assured That The Sunflower Turns Because It Is Heliotropic. The Trouble With That Kind Of Talk Is That It Tempts Us To Think That We Know What The Sunflower Is Up To. But We Don't. The Sunflower Is A Mystery, Just As Every Single Thing In The Universe Is.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Taste. Restore To Us Soups That Spoons Will Not Sink In And Sauces Which Are Never The Same Twice. Raise Up Among Us Stews With More Gravy Than We Have Bread To Blot It With... Give Us Pasta With A Hundred Fillings.

You Can Fold Up Spiritually, Morally, Or Intellectually And Still Be Safe. Because At The Very Worst, All You Can Be Is Dead —and For Him Who Is The Resurrection And The Life, That Just Makes You His Cup Of Tea.