Yeah, I know — having just deleted two posts on my own blog, I can never use the verb “Schleuter’d” again. . . 

I’m changing the name of this blog. As most of you know, it was “Musings from Two-Sheds Gomer”. “Two-Sheds” is my Gomer name (as a member of Third Day’s fan club).  For reasons that I’m not comfortable going into right now, I need to distance myself from that name.

Let me be clear: It has absolutely nothing to do with the band.  They haven’t changed at all.  I still heartily recommend them and commend them for the work they do.  But I’ve changed.  And, at least for now, I have to drop the moniker.

So what’s with the new name?

I’m told that, because I align myself with several beliefs that John Calvin espoused, that this makes me a Calvinist.  This is rather unfortunate, as a large majority of the self-identifying Calvinists in the blogosphere are, er um, well let’s just say they’re un-Christlike.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

But if people are gonna slap a label on me simply because I partially theologically align myself with some dude that’s been dead for 450 years, I’m gonna slap other labels on myself.

I really appreciate the teachings and writings of John Piper.  So, I guess this makes me a Piper cub.

My friend, Phil, is the one who turned me onto reformed theology.  I probably align theologically with him even more.  This would make me a Phil-istine.

So hence the new name for this blog:  A Piper Cub Lands in Philistia

This is a re-run of a 3-year-old post regarding an expression that my grandmother used to use (she went home about 7 months after I wrote this). I was reminded of it when reading an email from my aunt in which she mentioned that my grandfather used the same expression. I think this post bears repeating.

My grandmother has an expression that she uses — “God love ‘em”. Sometimes she uses it in sympathy (”Joe’s been sick lately, God love him”), sometimes in gratitude (”Mary was very encouraging to me, God love her”) and in other manners, too. I don’t remember her not using that phrase in my 38 years on this planet.

Sometimes when you hear something often, you don’t really hear it. Such is the case here. Recently, the profundity of that phrase hit me like a hammer:

God love ‘em

What greater desire could we express for another person, no matter what their circumstance or standing, than for God’s love to rain down on them?

Thanks for the lesson, Nana. God love ya.