Comments on: Living In One Room

By: Goliath

Goliath — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:25:45 +0000

What a hilariously incorrect attempt at armchair analysis. I have never been a communist.

By: Headless Unicorn Guy

Headless Unicorn Guy — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:44:57 +0000

I was never as broken and wretched as I was when I was a Christian. As long as I live, your grand commission will fail. Do I make myself clear? — Goliath

So you got burned by Christians, so now you’re an Anti-Christian, an Anti-Theist on the level of Madelyn Murray O’Hair, never passing up as chance at the only thing you live for — Sticking It To Those Hated Xians. Like a funhouse mirror of Those Xians, puking up the same abuse you got but in the other direction. You know who that reminds me of?

Ayn Rand, the Russian expat who was as Anti-Soviet as it was possible to be, a funhouse mirror-image of Lenin and Stalin who founded a cult of Utter Selfishness instead of Utter Collectivism.
Atlas Shrugged as SCRIPTURE (TM) instead of Das Kapital.
Communism begets Objectivism.

By: Chris Lee

Chris Lee — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:09:01 +0000

CS Lewis has a lot of good things to say. I’m going to re-read Screwtape Letters this year sometime.

By: graceshaker

graceshaker — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:17:56 +0000

i wasnt here in my present role as associate pastor a full month before my willingness to question the intermediate state and certain dispensationalist eschatology raised such a ruckus that people left the church.

since then ive been admonished not to talk about such things outside of the lead pastors office. he encourages me to come to him with such thinking but has made it clear he doesnt want it anywhere else.

so it seems that for me at least there is no place where compartmentalizing seems more necessary for survival than in church.

By: Goliath

Goliath — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:13:07 +0000

I was never as broken and wretched as I was when I was a Christian. As long as I live, your grand commission will fail. Do I make myself clear?

By: Fr. Ernesto

Fr. Ernesto — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:58:43 +0000

Surfnetter, that is why I quoted St. Paul in Romans 7. This was an apostle expressing the same thought as iMonk. He does go on to Romans 8, but the fact that he is forgiven, and knows it, does not stop his sadness and frustration with himself in his expression of the Christian life. But, neither does it stop him from faithfully preaching the Gospel and faithfully following his Lord to death itself. As with most things, it is a matter of balance.

But, iMonk is talking about Satanic compartamelization. That is very different from psychological compartamelization. The psychological one can be a way to deal with traumas, at least temporarily. But, the Satanic one keeps you from even seeing that you are sinning, that you are keeping God out of parts of your life. Often the person who has compartamentalized as a defense actually knows so. The danger that Screwtape points out is those who have been blinded so that they do not know they are compartamentalized.

By: Internet Elias

Internet Elias — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:47:03 +0000

MATTHEW BERRY …I guess a question that I would ask you is, What do you do to not live with these walls? How do you break down these walls?

Maybe call in a Master carpenter. I heard once there is one who advertises, ‘if I make you free you are free indeed.’ Isaiah talks about walls of salvation (60:18). Those might be nice.

By: Matthew Berry

Matthew Berry — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:48:33 +0000

That was a sobering word. I find it resounding in my soul. Wow… That is relevant and well-spoken, as always.

Thanks for taking the time to be honest about topics like this.

I guess a question that I would ask you is, What do you do to not live with these walls? How do you break down these walls?

By: Mich

Mich — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:06:51 +0000

The comment by Ed above reminded me of an incident that happened years ago when one of my sisters decided to go on the Atkin’s Diet and cut out carbs. She was and still is a sugar-oholic if ever there was one and within 2 hrs of having begun the diet, became essentially what amounted to a neurotic raving lunatic. She was driving us so nuts that we finally said “Here, have a damn chocolate bar already!” For her, even the thought of dieting brought out the worst.

I don’t think assimilating our fractured selves is something that we can simply make a resolution to undertake otherwise we’ll likely end up like my sister, piling on more failed resolutions. Paul’s statement about doing the very things that he shouldn’t do, etc. reminds me of just that. Essentially, I think we become aware of our plight and we put it in God’s hands. All we can do is follow His lead and it ain’t always easy. Small steps back to the core.

By: Walt

Walt — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:30:51 +0000

Oooops! forgot the link:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_30121988_christifideles-laici_en.html