Tweaking and Death

Sadly, our ancient Golden Retriever's health is declining.


She is a rescue from a puppy mill, rescued by friends who were foreclosed on a few months after the rescue. We offered a temporary haven while our friends searched for a permanent home for "Maggie." The temporary arrangement lasted about a week until we were completely in love and demanded that ours be her permanent home. That was nearly five years ago and we are now totally under Maggie's sweet spell.


Today Maggie is old and her health is declining. For all I know, she may last for a year or two. But her quality of life is not what it was and, no matter what we do, it will never be what it once was.


Evie and I have agreed that we will do what we reasonably can to keep her as comfortable as we can for as long as she can enjoy her life but that we won't take any extraordinary measures to extend her life.


Or, we will TWEAK her health but not do what is necessary to cure any serious ailment or disease she encounters...


------------------


...and as I examine the fruit produced by CGGC leadership and by the people on the top of the ERC mountain, I see the same sort of thinking taking place regarding the future of our body.


In the ERC, Commissions continue to schedule new, and hopefully better, seminars for our pastors and laymen to attend.


As I read Lance's eNews, I read articles explaining that we need to be more patient as we live our daily lives and that we need to get to know people who are different than we are.


Tweaking.


Getting more wine out of an old wineskin.


Understand. I'm certain that the Commission-sponsored seminar may very well be an avenue for a slight improvement in what we are doing. And, certainly, we do need to be more patient. And, some of us, as Lance points out, do need to expand the circle of people we know.


But, the problems we face can not be overcome by the minor tweaks being proposed from our mountaintops.


We need to repent and we need to turn from failing ways.


A powerful truth that defines us is that we won't repent. Our leaders resist the call to repentance and so do nearly all of our people.


--------------


Our dear, sweet Maggie will die. Perhaps next month, maybe next year. But she will die without any extraordinary measures being taken to extend her life.


And, it appears that in time, the CGGC body will die in the same way and for the same reason.


We need a new wineskin.


We must repent.