Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Wandering out into the stream

It's time to start speaking about the world as I understand it. I believes that it is God who does the reckoning around here and my job as one creature of the Creator is to listen for what God is saying. God reckons. We all know the passage "Abraham believed and God reckoned it to him as righteousness." (Galatians 3:6). It wasn't Abraham or Sarah's doing that made God see right, it was God's doing.

It seems to me that there are scads of people out in the ethers ready to tell me what God sees as righteousness. They have their Scripture texts, their BCP texts and their Thirty-nine articles to prove it. The best I can say is "I reckon" I know what God is up to.

As a natural born southerner, I am entitled to a word like reckon. I think it means, "I'm calculating, but I haven't reached for the 'sum total button' yet". "I reckon it's gonna rain" is less an out and out prediction in the south and more of an inclination toward precipitation. Sometimes, it can turn out entirely different from what was said. "I reckon I like possum" can actually turn out to include, "particularly when it's fed to the dog after supper".

I reckon (am inclined to believe) the God reckons (has hit the sum total button). Hopefully, some day I will reckon exactly what God is up to.