The day we were both born

Dear H,

On the day you were born I was born too, in a sense.  It was my first day being a father.  Before that I had seen people parent, both well and badly, but I had never done it myself.  It was like the first day I trained you to ride your bike or had you trace your first letter.  We pretend that parents are experienced and children have to be taught; but the truth is that every step we take in parenting for a long time -- from the first diaper to the first "conversation" -- is our first.  And most of the time nobody is around to help us do it.  And even if they were, I doubt we would listen.  In many ways I'm just as much a child as you are.  

Diversity

Dear H,

The common complaint of great pastors here is that Christianity has become too Americanized, and perhaps it has.  But wasn't "original" Christianity too Romanized, too Hellenized -- in the complaints of Paul, too Judaized?  The seed of Christ needed some soil to sprout in, and all soil means a compromise.  The germ will never be what it wants to be entirely.  It has to grow into what the soil permits it to, or doesn't permit, as Christ said Himself in the parable of the sower.  As Moses said when delivering The Law, I would have given you better laws, but you would never have put up with them*.  When pushing His ideas, even God knows His limits.