[aron]

This topic is certainly a tough one. We can see the lack of love in others easily. But do my "posts" convey any love? Or merely self-righteous indignation? Not so easy.

All I can really do is point to Jesus the Nazarene. In a culture obsessed with purity, some of it cultural/ritual, but a lot of it quite pressing, actually (think of what happened if you touched a leper, or someone with a running sore) here was this guy who was a "friend of sinners and harlots".

Think of the scene which the weeping woman washed his feet. The scribes thought, "If this guy knew who was really touching him..." There must be 25 stories like this in the gospel. Jesus again and again violated the norms of "purity".

And yet on the other hand, the unclean spirits, who could function quite well amongst the religious hypocrites, cried out in fear when Jesus appeared. "Ah! What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Nazarene?!" So here was clearly the arrival and display of a different level of purity.

So what can I say, really? I am a failure like a rest. I fail at both my attempts at purity, and at love. All I can say in my own defense is that I have not tried to institutionalize my failures, and impose them as the norm. Some other folks I am not sure if they can say that.