Traveling in the South.  Like everyone else, I like to get a sense of place so I try to do plan out things that fit in the Southern mold.   Those were fine.  But the best thing I did was unexpected.  On a hot, muggy day I had a bus to catch but I was early for it.  There was a big portico shaded by some tall oaks, and some rocking chairs on it.  So I sat and rocked without any care for the time, and felt a sense of what you might call Southernness well up around me.  I couldn’t have planned it.  If I had, it wouldn’t have worked.

C.S. Lewis talks about the  perversity of things.  Anyone who does home repair or gardening knows it.  Nothing ever quite works like you wanted.  To the point that when it does go smoothly, going as planned is itself a joyful surprise.  If things worked like they wanted to, they could not frustrate us or delight us,  because they would not really be outside of ourselves.  If no frustration, no happy surprise, then no relationship.

Grace is the happiest surprise.  Sinning with the plan to repent is a contradiction in terms.