Hey Lionel,

Gee you Reformed-Evangelical mob carry around a heavy burden of responsibility for effecting the salvific work of Pauline/Augustinian doctrine!  Presumably you must sweat over interactions with all individuals you know, wondering if they have been “saved from hell to eternal life”.  J-P Satre called this the ‘nausea’ or ‘agony’ of existence.

Best of luck resolving the existential crises you face (or is it an essentialist crisis?)

Cheers.

Hi Lionel,

I sympathize with your diary problems. I used to be the Keeper of the Diary in our household, until my husband complained that he never knew what was going on. So we switched to Google Calendar and now we both manage it—in consultation with each other, of course, but now it’s not just one of us who is Keeper of the Diary.

Sure, having it all in electronic form has its drawbacks in that it’s not hugely portable (although we’ve worked out how to sync it with iCal and then with our mobile phones), things still get left out, you can’t access it without electricity. But we’ve found that the pros (e.g. multiple calendars: one for me, one for him, one for both of us, one for work, one for birthdays and anniversaries, one to keep track of the movements of our jetsetting extended family) by far outweigh the cons.

Another thing that has helped us is that we tend to use the same communication technologies to talk to each other. It helps that we’re both quite tech-savvy and tend to be on the computer a lot (for work and otherwise). So we think, “Oh, I must go talk to [the other person] about that”; we just do it now—whether through IM, email, SMS, Twitter, etc.

All of this may be of no use to you! But if provides you a way out of your problem and gets you onto the next step, all glory to God!

Lionel,

Yes, quite.  Paul’s existential ‘agony’ is out there for all to read in the letters attributed to him.  I would give my left one to have been a fly on the wall in Athens when he engaged with the Stoics and Epicureans when these sorts of issues would have inevtably arisen.

Cheers

Hi Joe,

You’re almost correct that the point I was trying to make was about “hindrances in being deliberate and strategic in loving our neighbours, especially taking that first step”. However, my point was even more specific; I was focussing here on telling the gospel (one primary act of love). I agree entirely that loving our neighbour involves more than this, but I wasn’t particularly discussing the issue of “love” more generally in this post.

As often happens with blog posts, the discussion has moved into other unexpected areas. As I read it, Stephen has decided to use my post as an opportunity to make an ironical quip at what he sees as the psychological and philosophical contradictions in the kind of reformed evangelicalism I represent. I’ve responded in a similarly ironical yet serious manner by defending my view from the writings of Paul. Stephen has, again ironically, attempted to attribute the same kind of psychological and philosophical contradictions to Paul himself.

Karen has given some helpful advice about diary technology. This has been helpful too; although the point about my wife’s diary (and my own diary) was not really a point about diaries, just an example of how sometimes the “next step” in evangelism is something really mundane and simple (e.g. having a diary chat). I wasn’t trying to suggest that relying on a diary is the only way to meet this goal - just that in my particular circumstance, that was the next step for me.

Joe, you’ve also moved the discussion on into another area. That’s perfectly OK by me, but I suspect that this particular issue might best be followed through in your discussion on Pete’s post, rather than here, since this issue is closer to the heart of Pete’s post.