18.40 LCK —

77% Weekly Newsletter


The 77% Weekly
The 40/52-weeks-a-year, quick-reading, thought-lingering, spiritual-religious newsletter.

Religion-Outside-The-Box (oldrotb.wpengine.com) is a donation supported not-for-profit empowering adults to find and be with (the) God (of their understanding).  

Larry Keene is an ROTB board member, a retired minister, a retired sociology professor, and Rabbi Brian’s best-buddy.

Replies to this e-mail go directly to Larry.


 


18/40  
From the desk of Minister Laurence C. Keene 

 
 

The Burden of Imperfection

Logo for 77% Weekly

I wish I could do one single thing perfectly well, dear Lord, so I wouldn’t get so discouraged at the many things I do so imperfectly.

I eat too much; I get angry too often; I think unkind and impure thoughts more than I would like to admit; I am far too ambitious; too frequently I am jealous; and I am much less thoughtful than I know I ought to be.

After decades of trying to improve myself one would think I would be getting more things right than I do. The truth is, I am not actually inventing a whole lot of new and foolish things to do each day. Instead, I find myself simply repeating the same old foolish things I have done for a long time. I am having to re-learn those same old not-quite-learned lessons all over again. Practice has not made me more perfect. It has, instead, made me more discouraged and weary.

Be patient with me, O Lord. Help me to be more patient with myself as well. If I act foolishly, please help me to make that foolish action a solitary occurrence. Keep me from the embarrassment and suffering of revisiting and repeating old failures over and over again. I know that I am not yet what I ought to be. I just don’t want to be stuck on what I once was.

Love,

Larry
 

dr_minister_larry@rotb.org

The 77% Weekly

The 77% Weekly: The Religion-Outside-The-Box Newsletter
helps people find and be with (the) God (of their understanding) 40 out of 52 weeks a year.

 

Why 77%?
Two reasons:
1) 40/52 = 0.76923. The newsletter is sent every Monday except the last of each month.
2) In school 77% was a passing grade and ROTB wants to remind you that life isn’t graded.

Religion-Outside-The-Box is a donation-supported,
non-denominational, internet-based, 501c3-tax exempt religious congregation.

 

“I love you” x 3

For reasons a team of psychoanalysts might have been able to crack, my dad couldn’t get the three-word phrase “I love you” to come out of his mouth. I knew he loved us. It’s just he couldn’t say it. I rationalized that I didn’t need to hear those three words, but it hurt anyway. This is the story about how

Read More »

Truth Matters

I am standing in Kenya, with my left foot in the Northern Hemisphere and my right foot in the Southern. A line on the ground indicates the equator. Young men—asking for nothing, but hoping for tips—entertain and educate tourists, like me, about the Coriolis effect. They pour water into bowls with small holes at the bottom and let the water

Read More »

Stuff Gets To Me

✧✧✧ As I pack up to leave after my workout, someone asks me, “Hey, Rabbi, how are things going?” I’m not one for small talk. Especially after being called by my title. “Well,” I reply. “I’m sad.” “Why?” “I’m thinking about the girls who went to school in the morning in Minab, Iran—over a hundred of them—killed by a bomb.”

Read More »
77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter