Green Tea and Dark Chocolate

A slightly abstract and out-of-character scene of thoughts I'm thinking at this moment.

It's cold outside. I like that. Cold and Florida are strangers, so it's good when they have time to get to know one another. I'm just sitting here at my computer listening to music, enjoying being cozy in my room, sipping green tea and nibbling on leftover Valentine's Dove chocolate - yeah, it's good.

I've been reading Oscar Wilde. I'm only a quarter of the way through Collins Complete Works Of. He knew very well how to evoke emotion through writing. But his theology is all wrong. Love (meaning pity and kindness) doesn't fix everything. Having a hard heart, and then experiencing persecution, being outcast, going through tough times, and coming out soft doesn't all add up to redemption.

But I'm realizing that that is what most Christians think Jesus and the Bible are all about. Sure, Jesus taught us to love one another, and help those in need. But that's not the essence of the Gospel, it's the outcome. People are not hard shells with soft hearts. They are all rotten to the core, deceitfully wicked beings who need to be transformed by the power of God. That is how we get Paradise with God. Not through an act of sacrifice - obedience is better than sacrifice - and not through human love.

Oscar Wilde does bring out good moral points, though. Even though we should not look to any man's writings for the answer to spiritual problems, there are some common sense lessons we can derive from them. But, then again, there is no conundrum that the Bible doesn't hold the solution to.

In any case, I will finish reading Collins Complete Works of Oscar Wilde for social and educational reasons, however shallow they are, and continue to turn to God and His Word for guidance and wisdom concerning the problems of mankind.