Alfies, Take Note
“What’s
it all about, Alfie?”
Burt Bacharach’s 1966 question posed six high-impact issues.
Is
it just for the moment?
Is
it for what we can get?
Are
we meant to be kind?
Are
kind people fools?
Is
it about being cruel and strong?
What
about the Golden Rule?
In response, he comes very close to the answer, but misses it
because of cultural blinders.
Our culture rejects the presupposition that “love,” rises from a
clearly articulated worldview declared by Jesus Christ in space-time history. Rather,
it embraces a freewheeling idea of love as “kindness” which rises from a
misunderstanding of the Golden Rule.
To do to others what we would want done to us requires a correctly
informed self-awareness. This does not always correspond to our notion of
“kind.” Few think it “kind” to be cornered in wrongdoing. In fact it’s
considered “judgmental.” So, enabling someone in wrongdoing is thought to be
the kind, loving thing to do.
The Golden Rule does not balance on this misconception of kindness.
It assumes kindness based on rightness. Thus, confrontation, which may not seem
“kind,” is the right thing to happen.
Simply put, the Golden Rule means, “Do what is right to others, just as you
would want them to do what is right to you.”
There are things which ought and ought not to be done. Authentic love
works under that paradigm and requires both self control and self denial.
Therefore, it is not surprising the same cluster on which the grape of
self-control is found contains the grape of love, and they bookend all the
others. When one shrivels both shrivel, and the full-cluster lifestyle of the
Spirit’s fruit withers away while we bitterly wave a banner of indulgence or
stoop beneath a back pack of man-made rules of righteousness.
May God use these thoughts on the Withered Grape
To speak good things to you,
Through you,
And on your behalf.
Home: The Withered Grape
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