09/12/2025
Lover of Sewanee,..
Using Josh McDowel's logic of Jesus leaving us only (3) choices for thinking folks to pigeon-hole Him in, LORD, LIAR, OR LUNATIC, after you rejected His divinity, you are left with a tainted list. Tainted in the sense that neither a LIAR nor a LUNATIC are worthy of respect or honor. Certainly not credibly rising to the level of "the best moral expression and model for my own life" as you declared. Don't you recognize the blatant cognitive dissonance?!
Also, your last words sum up the source of your cognitive dissonance. While not minimizing the impact of father wounds on a child (even over a lifetime if not addressed), you have apparently made a concious decision to not seek God.
Neither you nor I have the capacity to create, manufacture, or force faith internally in ourselves or in another. Faith comes from clearly recognizing God's voice when He speaks to us.
All one has to do is seek Him. That shifts the next step on to God's side of the net.
Every thinking human being has had times of God awareness. In those moments, do you respond with a desire to find God in order to know Him... or, in essence, do you tell Him to f@*k off?
Lover of Sewanee, I know I can't make you do anything. So, your nice thought is inapposite: "I do appreciate your efforts to make me desire something I don't desire."
While I am firm believer in the Lay's One Potato Chip Theory (bet you can't eat just one), my efforts have been to invite other Lovers of Sewanee to consider what makes Sewanee evoke such strong emotional ties in us?
My epiphany came after a morning run ending up at Morgan's Steep.
The answer is in the Motto of TRUE EQB derived from Psalm 103:1,3.
All it takes is for a person to respond to a sunset at the Cross, a sunrise at Lake Cheston, a cool breeze while walking in the fog, the tingle when all the stops are pulled out on the organ for the last verse of All the Saints during the Recessional in All Saints, a white blanket of snow in November, or any of the other special moments on The Domain being in all of creation's glory, with a sincere desire to seek to find the Creator in order to know Him.
Stay in that state of mind expectantly waiting for Him to respond. Be alert for the urge to pull back when the threat of losing your self autonomy is triggered.
In those moments, tell yourself to "get over the fact that you are derivative being". For in the final analysis, if not, then you run the peril of maintaining your version of self without ever experiencing who you were created to be.
