Hello again.

Yes, Imitrex helped the headaches. I have now joined the ranks of "migraine sufferers". To be honest I've always thought "migraines" were more for PMSing women, not for grown, otherwise healthy men.

Little misjudgment there.

About that Rosary thing: I've stopped. Not sure if this is good or bad. I keep bouncing back and forth between traditions like the proverbial dog returning to its own vomit. At any given moment, of course, I think I'm headed in the right direction. Or at least I used to; I'm now thinking there might not be a right direction.

These days my heading is about fifteen degrees left of Reformed. I've tried this way before. It ends in despair. Ye Reformed will of course think this is because it's exactly fifteen degrees off of the straight and narrow. Maybe. Y'all definitely have something I want-- a certainty, a rest, a satisfaction in the sovereignty of God. I could sing the old hymn-- "I Want to be a Christian"-- and I could make it more specific still-- "I Want to be a Presbyterian".

What I don't want to be is the religious fanatic who wrecked his marriage over sola scriptura, indeed over *&^$ing culture war issues, when (as dear old Dad would say) I don't even have a dog in that fight.

What I need is a good, solid philosophical defense of the authority of Scripture. Something that isn't "Well, nothing else works, so why not this?" Something that explains how the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit is any more objective than, say, the "burning in the breast" that a Latter-Day Saint experiences when reading the Book of Mormon.

Something, in other words, that will allow me to take the so-called Biblical stance on particular atonement, gay marriage, church membership/participation, or any other point of religious contention that might trouble my marriage, without feeling like I was sacrificing my wife's love and the peace of my home to a merely human concept of what scripture is supposed to be.

The fact is, if the Bible says all the things it's supposed (by the theologically "conservative") to say-- and I have to admit that I think it does, for the most part-- it's incredibly destructive and painful to bring me under conviction without bringing my wife as well. Yeah, I know-- not peace but a sword. Well, consider this my little psalm of lament. Why, God? Just why would you put me in this position? I've tried to persuade her. I've tried to gently strew books and sermon recordings in her way. I've tried to defy her wishes and argue with her as necessary. It was months of sheer misery for both of us.

I see the truth, God, and I don't even speak it, I don't stand up for it. I guess I don't really believe you'd finally condemn someone like my wife-- I just can't think of her as this cosmic rebel shaking her fist at her Creator. Good Reformed theology aside, she looks pretty Christlike to me. If she disagrees with the Bible, it's because she loves justice and peace and fears prejudice and pharisaism.

I know my Calvin, and my Van Til, and some of my Bible, and I know the Biblical estimate of her (and all of fallen humanity's) character and judgment. But I also know the sick feeling I get when I argue with her over church, or abortion, or whatever. And Lord, I would really rather be dead than make her cry like that. So why don't you in your infinite power get somebody else to be her "antithesis", somebody else who can subject her worldview to the same car-crusher you've been putting mine through? I didn't sign up to break hearts, least of all hers.