Because man won’t?
The Ethiopian’s reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading, is the voice of nature: “How can I, unless some man shall guide me?” The Church undertakes that office; she does what none else can do, and this is the secret of her power. –An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
So she does what none else can do, mainly exactly what Philip just did? Yet none else can do what he did unless it is the church. Maybe the translation is wrong. Maybe it really says “How can I, unless some church program shall guide me?” There are nuances of course. People are the church but this does not seem to be the implication of the passage. There is something larger in control.
But the truth of the matter is man is lazy. And unless we are compelled by grace we have nothing but emptiness. I cannot even be sure we are in the Christian faith without this grace.
So man had to setup an institution to perform what man was supposed to.
Sunday I am on my white board again. I had asked myself many questions. I asked the same questions I have asked myself time and again. What can I even do with these questions? I decided that the Protestant churches are not much different than the Catholic church. Here is a list of things. Good luck. And don’t forget to come on Sunday and perform these rituals with us. Can this even be avoided? This is not the life I want to live. And I cannot find what God has me searching for. The wise council I received was I will have to deal with it “until he calls you to start your own”. That may be even worse.
As I went through many ideas, I wondered what this would actually look like. This was quickly discarded. And truth be told the dissatisfaction with church would include any that I attempted to put together. I have had the idea and discarded it many times. But then I wondered how I would change my life to reflect what I thought it should be. I remembered a phrase someone had said while discussing Matthew 28:19 many years ago. The phrase was “as you go” or to personalize it “as I go”. I used this to push some ideas.
I wanted to keep it simple so I developed an ideal day. This reminded me of Jonathan Edwards’ Resolution 41 which I text myself daily.
So after the simple ideal day above was created, I setup a mind map for the week, month, and year. I put non-negotiables in the my week. I did not complete the week as I would have preferred. I left it as simple as I could with only four items. I cannot share it because I have special projects on it that I do not want my kids to necessarily see. Do not worry, I will develop the week a bit more but I want to keep it as simple as I can. Then if I am feeling ambitious later, I will fill in the month and year maps.
I do not want to really explain the simple detail I have here. Minutiae is only for the insane (me).
It is hard to be mindful all the time. It is hard to do even the most simple things consistently.
It was fun to change the way I have my mind maps arranged. I believe I will be able to get rid of some maps as everything is arranged in a new format. I already had my “2 year” map which is now the multi year map. Goals may be eliminated completely. I moved two to the dead map. I don’t like to get rid of maps completely as they contain ideas but I do not always need to see them.
I wrote a bit more than I expected.