There's a cobweb...

on my bookshelf. Maybe I'll get around to clearing it off today. On the other hand, maybe that spider made a resolution to build there and knocking it off could ruin it for her. She should have had the black-eyed peas yesterday.

I enjoyed reading the comments about New Year's superstitions. Honestly I had not considered that it was a Southerner's only thing. Reading the Northerner's perspective was nothing but fascinating. One Northern friend on Facebook mentioned that she cooked pork roast and sauerkraut for the same reasons that the South cooks black-eyed peas and collard greens.

I'd love to know where these things came from, but I do not have today for research time. I've got cobwebs to clear.

Kelly, I thought your idea that the South's superstitions make us more receptive to God's Spirit intriguing. I spent some time thinking about that yesterday. If it is true, then it would explain a lot of Bible belt things, but both on the pro and con side.  Favorably, Southerners "love" the whole God and country, faith and hope, church and family pulpit. We support those politicians, even erroneously, that can quote Scripture, and we identify families by church pews. We believe every one should be in church on Sunday, and every time the doors are open is not too often. We even openly have prayer in schools though "they" say we shouldn't. And attending a ladies' Bible study is an accepted weekly requirement.

So, on some fronts, the idea of the Spirit of God is alive and well. But to the converse, the idea alone is not enough. Having lived in the South virtually my whole life, I can see where the idea alone has injured true discipleship. The comfort and convenience of being religious often replaces the cost and commitment of serving God.

To be fair, I have not lived in the North (except for 15 months in Illinois, but I was only 5) and I do not know the perspective of having to go against the tide, so to say. I have only heard the thoughts of Christian friends who live in the North and painfully tell of how hard it can be to find warm fellowship or solid preaching or even thoughtful ladies' Bible studies. I regret that difficulty for them. Obviously those are specific statements, not generalized to the entire Northern evangelical community. The South has no monopoly on true doctrine. Monopoly on superstitions perhaps, but God's people are clearly found everywhere.

I believe it comes down to the same issue. Cost and commitment to serving God, no matter your surroundings, either marks your faith or it does not. And living with costly commitment whether the environment seems to favor me or disfavor me will show where my heart really is.

Kelly, thanks for your comment. It helped me to clear some theological cobwebs from my mind and solidified yet again personal resolutions about how my faith in the Lord must be actively solid and daily growing.