stench

Tuesday August 26th, Romans 12: 4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So much for the spirit of rugged individualism. Part of the problem faced by America is the move toward the pseudo-individualism. We can hold up the façade of making it on our own, and damn those who dare ask for my tax money on government handouts. So we drive on or roads to work in a big corporation that gets government contracts or tax breaks to produce a product helped by government regulation while looking down our nose at someone just wanting some food for their children. It is often not someone else that cuts us off from the body, but rather we ourselves who do it. Paul points out in some rather graphic ways just what happens when we do fool ourselves into the notion of rugged individualism, we not only die, we send out a bit of a stench in the process.