My writing today was more productive than the last couple of days, although my total word count for the entire story, at the time I ended writing today, is at a good, solid 5,555 words—not 5,556 or 5,554, but 5,555, and, no, I did NOT add or subtract a word just to make this number come out that way.Tomorrow, being my first day to return to work after my week-long writing vacation, I will write my 5,556 word. However, I cannot guarantee that word number 5,557 will be written or any more, but since my writing productivity hasn’t been this good until this week, that is my goal. I guess I could make a goal to make it to the next digitally repetitive number (6,666), but I need to accomplish baby steps, and if my NaNoWriMo must become a NaNoWri2Mo, then so be it.
Although my writing didn’t progress as far as I’d hoped today, I did have some interesting conversations at Starbucks, and the shop was lively otherwise. One of the workers passed out some buy-one-get-one-free drink coupons for the remaining weekends of September. He gave everyone one each but gave five each to a couple of attractive medical students who also frequent the shop. I told the girls that they should’ve held out for completely-free-drink coupons—after all, the coupons made them buy at least one drink (although they usually do that), and a true gentleman would pay for a lady’s drink. You know, the coupons virtually guarantee the phrase “Can I buy you a drink?” to be heard in the halls of Starbucks for the rest of the month.
On a more serious note, a Jewish girl that frequents the shop asked me, based on my knowledge and beliefs, whether it was the Jews or the Romans that put Jesus to death, to which I answered, based on what the Gospels say, the Jewish leaders of the day sentenced Jesus to death but, since Roman law forbade them from executing anyone, they turned him over to the Roman authorities to be executed. So, in a sense, it was both the Jewish and Roman authorities that executed Jesus. In addition to this, I pointed out that it was not the Jews nor the Romans as an entire people that performed the act of putting Jesus to death, just the leaders.
Another topic that came up was about when the miracle occurred for Jesus’ conception and when Mary actually became pregnant, to which I just replied that a woman becomes pregnant when an egg is fertilized and attaches itself to a woman’s uterus, and that the same happened in Mary’s case, although the act of fertilization happened in a very supernatural way, an intervention by God himself, which was the miracle.
A followup question was whether I was a good Christian or not. I just told the people at my table that while I am better than some, I’m also worse than others, but compared to a holy God that is perfect, I am not perfect and am not without sin, and since being a Christian means being a “little Christ,” I and every other Christian that has ever existed or will exist can never be a “good” Christian; after all, Christ himself, God in the flesh, said that no one is good—except God.
On a lighter note, one of my table mates asked how God could be perfect if the pit of the avocado is so huge compared to the entire avocado! Even though I took it as a light-hearted question (I guess he really likes guacamole), I did answer that creation, as God intended it, was perfect but that with the sin of Adam and Eve, all of creation changed, although there’s no way of knowing how big the pit of the avocado was before Adam and Eve sinned.
On a more serious note, the question came up about how we could still have faith based on stories from millennia ago. I said that having faith in something is what we do all the time but that having faith in Christ is not, nor should it be, a blind faith. Rather than getting into a discussion about why we should have faith and how that faith can be fostered by an honestly-seeking skeptic, I mentioned that Lee Strobel’s series of books The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for the Real Jesus are well written from a skeptical journalist’s perspective, involving interviews with experts along many disciplines, answering the tough questions most people would ask.
The question was also posed as to why we celebrate Christmas on December 25 when that was most likely not the day Jesus was born on. My answer to that was that during those days, kings’ birthdays may not have been celebrated on the actual day of their birth but the most important thing is that they were celebrated. I also mentioned that there’s some speculation that Christ was born during the Feast of Tabernacles, based on the passage that says he dwelt with us. And, I followed up about the adoption of December 25 as being the early Christians’ attempt to do something significant during a pagan holiday that they would not partake in.
All-in-all, I think it was a good Sunday. I may not have accomplished all I had in mind to accomplish, but I believe I accomplished all that God intended for me to accomplish.
