Monthly Archives: August 2016

WINGSPREAD E-zine for August, 2016

“Spreading your wings” in a perplexing world
August, 2016                                                                                      James Hurd

 Contents

  • New blog article: Get Thee Behind Me Satan—and Push!
  • Writer’s Word of the Week
  • Book and Film reviews
  • Favorite quotes
  • E-zine subscription information
  • How to purchase Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying

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New blog article: Get Thee Behind Me Satan—and Push!

You’re kidding yourself! No—really. We all are. What to do?

 In self-deception you’re both the deceiver and the deceived—you talk yourself into a lie. But SD is so frequent that you don’t even notice it.

Examples abound. I tell myself I can indulge my lust and still have high morals. Although I’m all for good nutrition, I tell myself it’s OK to eat lots of sugars and fats. (Anyway, next week I’ll start my diet.) When I was a pilot, I convinced myself I could beat the odds and fly through bad weather–a practice I condemned in other pilots….

Read more here:   https://jimhurd.com/2016/08/05/get-thee-behind-me-satan-and-push/

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 Writers’ Word of the Week:   Forward Lean
Forward lean means that your writing keeps the reader reading—it pulls the reader onward by tension, unanswered questions, puzzles, unsupplied information. Be a good writer—use forward lean.

Book and Film Reviews

Ecclesiastes: The meaning of your life. Hea Sun Kim and Mary Lou Blakeman. How understand the most realistic, but pessimistic book of the Bible? Kim and Blakeman help us unravel the writings of Qohelet and his observations on “life under the sun.” 1995. 129 pp.

Tender Mercies: Some thoughts on faith. Another gem by Ann Lamott. Honest, transparent, memoir-ish. Makes you love her, and gives you faith to face the craziness of life. Anchor Books, 1999. 272 pp.

Key Largo. A historic black-and-white Bogey film with army veteran Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) and war-widow Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall), set in hurricane season in the Florida Keys. Bad guys have taken over the hotel. The hurricane comes. Will Bogart again save the day? 1948 1 hr 41m

 Favorite quotes

♫   If you want good answers, you must learn to ask good questions.

♫   I hate it when I go to the kitchen looking for food and all I find are ingredients.

♫   I was so sick of semicolons that I lapsed into a comma.  Lynn Truss

♫   Ah synonym rolls! Just like grammar used to make.

♫   Quote about Amish life:  “If you admire our faith, strengthen yours. If you admire our sense of commitment, deepen yours. If you admire our community spirit, build your own. If you admire the simple life, cut back. If you admire deep character and enduring values, live them yourself.”

♫   “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”  Oscar Wilde
[I hear you, Oscar!]

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Get Thee Behind Me Satan—and Push

 

 

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
Robert Burns

You’re kidding yourself! No, really–you are. What are you going to do about it?

 In self-deception you’re both the deceiver and the deceived—you talk yourself into a lie. But SD is so frequent  you don’t even notice it.

Examples abound. I tell myself I can indulge my lust and still have high morals. Although I’m all for good nutrition, I tell myself it’s OK to eat lots of sugars and fats. (Anyway, next week I’ll start my diet.) When I was a pilot, I convinced myself I could beat the odds and fly through bad weather–a practice I condemned in other pilots.

St. Paul feels my pain: “…what I do is not the good I want to do.” (Rom 7:19). Vintage SD—no big deal, really—except when it leads to disaster. In dating, SD can lead to sexual immorality and a broken heart. In nutrition, SD can lead to frail health and an early death. In aviation, SD can lead to a fatal accident.

Where does SD come from? It comes from my split will. My “will” is not single; it’s more like a food fight among dysfunctional members of a board. The voices of reason get out-shouted by the short-sighted members who favor easy-feel-good over hard-but-better.

What to do?

  • I need to tell myself the truth, to admit that I’m a sucker for SD.
  • I need faithful people around me to correct and warn me (for example, an accountability group).
  • I need to remember: God is true; I’m not.

As St. Paul says, “…the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Not my SD “truth,” but God’s.