Temperance. Never been able to figure out how that word means 'no drinking.'

Well, C.S. Lewis finally righted it for me: it used to mean 'going the right length and no farther.' Interesting. Then I guess someone's pet sin took over and redefined the word.

Here is an interesting paragraph: "One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as 'intemperate' as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals." (Mere Christianity)

God does not want people who adhere to a set of rules. He wants people of a particular sort, who are shown to be part of the group by certain things, and He graciously makes us as He desires us to be; He does not stand back and demand the impossible and then refuse to help. What we do in our lives is a product of His work and His power, in the same way a Stradivarius is the product of the master's work and skill; we are fashioned a tool, given glory we did not earn, and only the master knows the purity of sound that may be reached when his tool is properly played.

I righted a wrong today, I hope, and I feel much more free than I did this morning.