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Authenticity: The “Real I” and the “Real Thou”
At fourteen, a few days before I turned fifteen, I had a crash-bang encounter with the Real Thou…and He spoke directly to the Real I. Having been chosen at the last moment to replace someone on our Youth For Christ Bible quiz team, I had crammed for a week, trying to memorize scripture that we would cover in quizzes against other teams from our North Atlantic District. We were going to represent our group at a large convention in Ocean City, New Jersey. This was a big deal…and I was scared. By the time we got to Ocean City, I was not feeling well. I got worse as the…
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No Pretension
Authenticity. Reality. I think that was what drew us to our farm. Yes, it was badly run down. The farm had seen a lot of living. It had been used to raise chickens and pigs, to grow crops, to supply milk, to allow a tiny family of three with little outside income to live comfortably for years. The eighty-five year old farmer had told us when we noticed the huge stacks of firewood around the house, “In the winter I stay snug as a bug in a rug.” The tiny house had been a shelter, a place of love, heartache, joy, loss. No pretense, no desire to impress, just…
