The Furniture of Grace
Before I can even begin to talk about Grace, we need to get something straight. And this is the uber-critical paradox that people often forget when talking about God and his mercy and his goodness and his forgiveness:
Just because grace is ‘free’ does not mean it ‘costs’ us nothing.
We often speak of grace as a present we get from God. Like Jesus on the cross worked out a deal where we get a bunch of “Get out of Hell Free” cards which we stuff in our pockets until stand in the throneroom of God and present them to “St. Peter” as the reason why we should be let into heaven. But Grace is so much more than that.
God is Holy, I am an Ass
There’s been a theme in my life this week that began to climax in response to this morning’s sermon and then a question on Facebook crystallized the theme. The theme is this: “I am very often an [insert explicative insult here: e.g., jerk, ass, etc. ].” I like to think I try very hard not to be, but when it comes down to it, there are simply times when I act in a way that afterwards I am not proud of at all, if I were to even think of it. Why is that? I mean, I try to be considerate of others, be unselfish and all those “love others” type things but I find I am actually pretty poor at doing even some of the simplest acts of goodness, regardless of being a professing Christian for 29 years. No amount of Bible *knowledge* or even life experience makes it easier…. it’s more than that.
Of Guids, Primary Keys, and Clustered …
One of the more raucous debates among developers and DBA’s for the past decade or more has been over the use of GUIDs (Graphical Unique Identifiers) or UID as primary keys on database tables. The amount of blog entries that actually miss the entire point of good database design is actually deplorable. So here is my attempt at addressing the problem not simply from a performance perspective (though that is ultimately important) or a size perspective (though you may be concerned here) but by identifying the issues from a database design principle perspective and offering various options depending on your constraints.
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Ken & Diane the First Decade
We’re celebrating our first decade of marraige by sharing our video collage with whoever wants to see it.. Isn’t the Internet great?
Ken and Diane – The First Decade (Small)
Ken and Diane – The First Decade (Medium)
Remembering – I still have that Question
For Those About to Fight (Remember this? It is a song put together by a local radio station following 9/11. Play it as you read…)
Two days from a very important anniversary in the history of the United States and two months from a critical election, perhaps we need a reminder of recent history. It is saddening that we can so easily forget the pain of the days following September 11, 2001. It is maddening that we end up bickering about party politics and arguing about the infinitesimal details while our soldiers are put in harm’s way on a daily basis. It is frustrating to me that I am still not certain how to answer a question posed to me that fateful day.