Lust- the second look

One of our vicars ( I know, lucky us, we have a selection) has been banging on about accountability again. He's got this idea, and it seems like a good one to me, that by keeping ourselves accountable to one person, by searching ourselves and our journey with God periodically, we help ourselves stay on the right track. It makes sense to me. I guess this blog is partly my own interpretation of that; that by living bits of my life 'out loud' I'll keep myself honest. I'm keen to investigate this in-depth one-to-one relationship accountability too, because I don't think all the minutiae of day-to-day sinning are best explored in public all of the time (applications for potential confessors will be most gratefully received ;-) ).

Anyway, this week's thrust comes from the format of how he does his accountability. He writes a monthly email to his mate and unpacks his life in sections, broken down by the seven deadly sins.

This struck me as a good idea. When I'm confessing, I can easily overlook lots of the stuff I get wrong. I tend to ignore pride, gluttony passes me by and envy gets off scott free. Lust is something I rarely think about. After all, most of my lust is for my beautiful wife, and that's to be encouraged, surely?

Now, I don't want to seem like I'm beating myself up, because I'm not. I have no more of an issue with lust than most people. It doesn't burden me or generally cause me to stumble. I'm not wracked with guilt and I feel in balance and in control with the whole area, but one of the vicar's comments made me sit up and pay attention. He talked about the second look; you know the one where, after you have noticed that someone of your preferred gender is fearfully and wonderfully created, with curves/muscles in all the right places, you turn back to admire them some more. Sometimes it's 'Well done on that one, Lord!' and sometimes it's a little less holy.

Now, right from the start the vicar said that he wasn't saying this constitutes lust, just that it was where he had decided to draw his line and he tries not to cross it.

I know it's something that I do. At this time of year it's hard not to, when short skirts and tiny tops come out of hibernation to appear all over the city. It can even make driving an issue as my attention is easily distracted from the road! So, I am making it a goal to avoid the second look whenever I notice I'm doing it. I will no longer follow bronzed beauties around supermarkets, gazing in wonderment at perfect legs. It might not be helpful, and besides, the legs that cycle home to me every night (that's them there, attached to my glorious wife) are more than worth a second look. I'll keep you posted on how I do. So far, I'm winning more than I'm losing.

Anyway, until next time, be well and run straight! This week, no bible as away traveling without it. Speeding: a little, and motorways only. Plan for today includes both a bit of bible time and a decent run.

Self-Discipline is a joined up thing

I run.

Not always very well, and at best only as a reasonable amateur, but I run. I don't always like it, but I know that I enjoy it more when I'm better at it, so I have to force myself out the door at the start of the season. After a long, fat lazy winter I'm just starting to get back into my sporadic stride.

So, this week, I didn't manage to run until Friday. Things were more important on any given evening, excuses and procrastination abounded. Each time I put running back until tomorrow I felt completely justified, but when I put it off again on Thursday I felt I'd let myself down. Friday came and out I went, lacking energy but pounding the pavement anyway.

The thing I noticed was the correlation with my spiritual race. In the same week that I failed to run, even though a part of me really wanted to, I also barely cracked open my bible. Very little time indeed was devoted to the Jesus I intend to pursue. It wasn't a horrible week, don't get me wrong. I wasn't out there murdering kittens or beating my wives. I just took my eye off the ball and suddenly, it was Friday and I coasted through my week making no progress in either of my races.

Oh well, no great shakes perhaps. I'll just have to do better next week.

How are you all doing out there with you're races?

Voting

Is there a right way to vote as a Christian? If Jesus were here (which I know he is) and on the electoral roll (which I know he isn't) how would he cast his solitary vote? Here is the dual nature of Christ for all to see: down here, it'd be just one man, one vote. Up there, as The Word, it's much less democratic. There is only one man, and what he says goes. Still, assuming that he put aside his omnipotence and was happy to cast a single ballot, what would it be? Would he vote? As a civic minded chap I'd like to think he would, but who knows.
I used to think I knew. For a long time I was a socialist, because that political philosophy came closest to the idea of looking after everybody. Anyone more right wing than me clearly didn't want to look after people and was therefore evil. Yup, I thought all Tories were sinful, selfish and wrong. How Christianity in the USA ever came to be most strongly associated with the Republican party baffled me, but I wrote that off as Americans not being smart enough to see what I could.

This persisted until I was 20 when I lost my faith. Then Tories lost the sinful badge and became simply selfish and wrong.

Jonathan Aitkin brought tings into focus when I saw him speak at Church. This man was clearly now walking his life with Jesus. The question I wanted to ask him but never got the chance was "Are you still a Tory now you're a Christian." I now thought it was possible for Tories to be saved, but did their salvation have to include a change in political leaning?

These days I'm much more open-minded. I've met Christians who vote Tory, scumbags who vote Labour and good folk of sound moral character who don't vote at all. I still think it's right to vote, and hope my friends will do so, but I believe it's perfectly possible for well-thought Christians to vote for almost any party, and I'm even making progress on not judging them too much. The older I get, the more aware I am of how unlikely I am to be right about everything, or even anything.

How would Jesus vote? That's probably the question we should all ask ourselves as we make our mark. As for me, like Gordon said; I agree with Nick.

Psalms read this week; about half of what I was aiming for. Speeding this week; some slight. I'm off to crack my bible now.