Book club

 I've been reading more lately & just finished Shogun about feudal Japan (I am a geek) the book is awesome but in it they treat death as a method to cope with guilt & shame. Jez wrote to me about it and how we deal with guilt & got me thinking. 

My sister also wrote a blog recently about how native American cultures deal with guilt and how they are about restoration rather than just guilt or revenge or getting even like prison, Spanish inquisition or death etc... They have to restore relationships as a priority rather than living on in guilt.The main consequence of sin in our culture is guilt which is not a biblical response and can often be self indulgent and lead to no actual action. A biblical response is to say sorry, repent and rejoice. mlk said something like 'the only contribution I make to my salvation is the sin which god graciously takes away'. The point is not to run round intentionally sinning but given that we know we will sin, it is far more liberating to live in forgiveness than in guilt. We live with guilt and inadequacy rather than resolving the issues or more straight forwardly giving it to God. Forgiveness is a full stop rather than a comma. (i gotta confess i just thought of that sentence and am pretty proud of myself!) I love how different the Japanese culture is though & how you can see truth and biblical principles in different cultures. makes you check which of your own beliefs are biblical and which are cultural I wonder if guilt and revenge are for more cultural than we think?

Gimmie a year and I spect I will have read another book to scribble about.

http://growandbegrown.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html (My sister's blog on said topic, although given she accounts for about half my readership it may be i slightly pointless link!)