Flying Home

An interesting situation that happened to me happened this past weekend. I hopped on a plane and flew to Colorado to go home for the weekend. It was not completely spontaneous though, it was a planned trip for me to get my braces adjusted. When I was waiting in LAX on friday night, a gay flight attendant and another female flight attendant walked by me talking loudly and I thought to myself how much fun it would be to have the gay flight attendant on my flight. Sure enough, when I walked onto the plane, there he was. All three of the flight attendants on my flight were really nice. They were joking around with each other and all the passengers. The best part of the trip though happened when I was on my way to the restroom. They gay flight attendant was in the back of the plane unwrapping something and he almost hit me when he went to throw the wrapper away. He apologized in the most shocking way when he said "Oh, I'm so sorry, Dumplin'!!" I have never been called "dumplin'" in my entire life. Especially not by a guy. It was very interesting and it made the flight even more entertaining.

Grace v Pacifism

The connections between Bonhoeffer's Costly Grace and Hauerwas' September 11, 2001: A Pacifist Response are vague but they do exist. Bonhoeffer discusses the difference between cheap and costly grace. He says that cheap grace is "the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner." Costly grace is something to be treasured because of the price that was paid for it to be possible. In a biblical sense, "cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate" and costly grace "cost God the life of his son." Hauerwas talks about how he disapproves of the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11. He believes that Christians should not kill others but rather live a life of nonviolence which may lead to persecution and death. He also says that "more people [might] die because the just warrior refuses to do an evil that good may come." The connections between these two ideals are that they are both trying to tell the reader that the price has already been paid for us, so why are we fighting against what is already ours? We, as Christians, already have a place in heaven so death should not be feared.