North Shore Narrative

Here are a few noticeable differences between New England Starbucks as compared to the Texans.

• New Englanders love iced coffee. More than hot coffee. They simply say "tall iced". That is it. It is assumed that you know that they mean iced coffee, and nothing else.

*They expect cream and sugar premixed into their coffee. This is due to the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts of New England, who makes cream and sugar inherent in their coffee. Seemingly everywhere, the question is whether if it is a Dunkin Donuts that has a gas station, and not the other way around.

*Texans order "Tawl Bowld"; New Englanders order "Tahhl Dahhk".

"any one of the virtues of Jesus may be taken as the key to the understanding of his character and teaching; but each is intelligible in its apparent radicalism only as a relation to God."- H. Richard Niehbur

When one looks at the history of Christ, what will first be obvious is His virtue- love, hope, humility, compassion, and so forth. Christ performed these virtues out of His relation to God, being His son, and knowing that God only, not man, is worthy of our absolute love and allegiance."The love of God is nonpossessive Eros; the love of man pure Agape; the love of God is passion; the love of man, compassion."-ibid. It is the second love with which we love man, a love that forgives, is patient, takes pity, and has mercy. The first love toward God contains no such elements, and it is that particular love of God which provides the second love toward man.
To love God is the highest of virtue, which is against any sort of love that is love for its own sake, or any other virtue for that matter. When one abstracts the virtues from Christ, and uses Him only as a moral example of that ascribed virtue, Christ then becomes misunderstood, and is relegated into something other than who He revealed himself to be. Christ pointed to God the Father as cause and effect of His virtue- how he came not to do His own will, but rather the will of Him who has sent. Only God could enact such virtue as seen in Christ, which thus made Christ not one filled with virtue simply, but rather one whose very essence was God. When one truly loves Christ, he will truly love God, and when when one truly loves God, it will only follow that he loves Jesus Christ.