Pillar of Cloud

First. Tonight there was thick fog and low clouds. I saw this from the fire escape on the loft. Looking over roofs towards the campus, the fog was lit up into pillars of orange or yellow or blue, wherever there were lights. There was a game at the U of O tonight and the sidewalks were streaming with people, but all sound was hushed and drifted in from far away. Even the saxophone. A bum was playing the saxophone on the street corner, playing, I guess, to the passers-by and the fog.

Second. I looked back over the last few posts, and they don't seem particularly clear to me. It is too much work to edit them. I don't know if this will help.

The problem that has been bothering me the last few weeks is this. How do you forgive people who doesn't think they have a problem? I may not be actually dealing with this situation, but it sure seems like it. One tearful night after much dislike of God, I was forced to admit that you do, in fact, have to forgive them. This is probably painfully obvious, but it occurred to me that Jesus forgave people who were in the process of killing him. You don't get much more unrepentant than that. This was hard to argue against. This is also why Reid (Hoover)'s definition of Christianity struck me- not only because I expected him to be much more verbose than that.

Anyway, that being agreed to, I am still left with the problem of what to do. What does forgiveness even look like if the person doesn't think they need it? Do you embrace them as brothers who God is working on at a different rate and manner? Do you refuse to accept something blatantly wrong? Do you hide in a corner and wait for it all to blow over? What does love look like in a body? No idea.

At any rate. I really wish that all the problems in my life were resolved and that life was all fluffy and pink, but there's no point in even saying that. One time, Nigel Cottier, my German teacher, tried to illustrate German humor for us. He said that in Berlin, the situation maybe serious, but it's never hopeless. In Vienna, the situation may be hopeless, but it's not serious.

I think I may be Viennese at heart.