Episode Nineteen - Lenten Thoughts on Russian Grace

FIRST THINGS FIRST: Is my son right? Did God “create” his (current) favourite video game platform, Roblox? He’s got an argument to try and prove it (which I outline near the top of this pod), but… I’m not convinced. You? Comment & let me know!

Beyond that philosophical query, in this episode we also talk a little about Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”, specifically this quote:

“…let the reader who expects this book to be a political expose slam its covers shut right now. If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, and under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he's close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.”

In a season where the darkness of the human heart is abundantly clear, what are we to do with our need to balance justice & mercy? This lent, this seems like an excellent question to explore more.

Speaking of lent, the other thing we do in this pod is explore the celebration of Ash Wednesday with an audio version of this video.