For a while I wondered why Jesus went to the cross.  Seemed a little extreme. I was a decent person, relatively speaking, and quite liked the idea of being judged based on my rule following.  A gifted Pharisee seems to have no fear of morality.  What she fears, rather, are things like love and forgiveness and living by faith alone. 

Someday maybe I’ll write a book about the characters that line our street.  Today I’ll simply mention two, and how they’ve been gnawing away at my Pharisee-prone compulsions.  

We live in a transitional community, so it’s constantly lending lessons and paradigm-shifts to concepts like “family,” “wealth,” or “the Gospel.”  A neighbor and close friend of ours, whose name I’ll leave concealed, knocked yesterday at 8am.