A tendency to equate bread and love leads to an impoverishment of love. Love cannot be bought and sold; it is not a consumer product, even though commercial and personal interests may want to convince us otherwise. Since we can’t purchase love, we may figure the best way to obtain it is to make sure that we receive before we give. Whenever we center on “what’s in this for me?” or “why should I do this unless I’m going to get that?” we’re losing love and operating in a manner akin to living on bread alone.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
I take that it that we should have confidence and humility concerning belief in God, and other matters. They are, in my assessment, crucial dialogue partners. Confidence without humility is absolutism, but humility without confidence is relativism. Neither are plausible options. What do you think?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
I believe in God and seek to follow the Crucified and Risen One because of certain things and in spite of others. The primary because of is that God is revealed in thereness and can be sufficiently known, which therefore allows me to be known, and results in true knowledge. This because of compels me to explore the dynamiotics of redemption and the power of life over death. The primary in spite of is that God appears to be distant and at times uninvolved in my life and the world. This in spite of requires that I be attuned to the rhythms of life in community with God and be patient in the midst of the unresolved. For spirituality this means that there is a tension filled complexity, where the because of and in spite of are in dialogue in the ebb and flow of life. Instead of running away from this truism, it is to be embraced, as we attempt to work out salvation, for God is at work in us.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Reflection for the Week
Retreating behind walls of fear blinds us to the prospect of loving and being loved. There is, however, it is true, the need for spiritual strength and wisdom to be able to come out from hiding and to embrace possibilities, albeit without the assurance that it will all work out in one’s favor. Terrible hurt and pain can make such a move seem impossible. Rejection and reaction reign as the only features that make sense, as new suffering always appears to be inevitable. Yet grace is corrosive and cuts into the fiber of wounds, gradually mending that which is bleeding.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Influenced and Affected God?
Following the question on ZigZag yesterday here are a few thoughts.
The debate about God being influenced or affected by humanity is well-known today. My wager is that God is not changed by humanity, but that he communicatively acts out of his covenant trajectory for the whole world. This does not mean, on my account, that God does not relate to humanity contextually; he does, though God is not contextual. That is, God is already, within his covenantal being God, a God who has, is, and will take the context of humanity into consideration when communicatively acting for his ownself and for the world. God’s character and actions remain related and distinct, yet God comprises them both in who he is.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
Why do you think God does or does not change due to human or outside influence?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
The fear of getting carried away by reason, sense observation, imagination, sex, or some other dimension of humanness, is a legitimate concern. But this worry about going too far in one direction or the other can be diminished if we realize that we are holistic beings with a variety of dimensions that are interconnected. That is, we are rational, visual, and imaginative, to mention three dimensions, which all need to be in dialogue. If we are aware of who we are, we are less likely to privilege one dimension over the other. There is no guarantee, of course, that we won’t fall into various forms of extremism / polarization, but one of the best ways to understand how to stay within our limits is to be in interpersonal dialogue. A further way of enhancing dialogue would be to recognize the importance of the other, the natural world, and the biblical text as valid informers that enter into the interpersonal landscape and shape it in fresh ways. Love, awe, wonder, mystery, affirmation, critique, and justice, to mention a few, are connected to a personal referent who in giveness is sufficiently known in dialogue, yet has endless meaning and significance that goes far beyond it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Reflection for the Week
Plug and play spirituality is an unfortunate expression of contemporary Christianity. No wonder the faith is losing traction. While redemption is powerful and realistic, we mimic the trite and superficial. The watching world is getting tired of looking and seeing itself in a mirror. There’s no better time for those willing to think and question to move in new directions of deeply living truth and love in dynamic ways. Enhancing the credibility of the faith is not entirely our responsibility, but it is something that should be dear to our hearts for the sake of Christ and others.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Violent God?
Following the question on ZigZag yesterday, here are a few thoughts.
As mesmerizing as it may seem to some of us in the twenty-first century, the God of the OT is an Ancient Near Eastern God. That is, God reveals into a human history context that is far different and more mysterious than our own. It seems to me that it couldn’t have been otherwise if Israel and others were to have any knowledge of him. This ANE God is portrayed as a Warrior, King of the earth, and the Lord mighty in Battle, to mention just a few metaphors, or anthropomorphic―theologically packed expressions. After all, it appears that God is dealing with barbarians, thugs, and louts, which requires severe, yet contextual measures. He represents himself, therefore, as a powerful Egyptian Pharaoh or Mesopotamian King entering into Holy war and he is out to bring about redemption and justice.
The progressive unfolding of the revelation of God in Scripture adds many new metaphors that apply to an understanding of his mission for the whole world. Keeping these in mind will help us to not play off one image against another, as we seek to come to grips with the God of love, truth, justice, and mercy.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Does God endorse violence in the OT?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
We can often tend to put far too much weight on knowing and being a knower. While this is fitting to some degree, the over-emphasis is a major plague, and expresses itself in several ways including: reductionism, hiddenness, and falsification. Other perspectives are necessary. My proposal, for one of these, is that to have knowledge is to be known. Being known carries significant power for knowing, and therefore without this acknowledgement our knowledge will be greatly impoverished. The more one attempts to be a knower with a single focus trajectory of knowing, the further one is away from the actuality of knowledge.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Women Vote
In Switzerland, we are especially remembering February 7, as it is the date when women first voted in this country. Though it is regrettable that this only started in 1971, a mere forty years ago, it is still cause for celebration.
Reflection for the Week
The trauma of loss can overwhelm us and deplete our strength for embracing life. Our rights, relationality, and stories will not sever us from being suffering selves; a true part of our identity as humans. Thank you Lord that you have covenanted to join us, and now you know the bleak path of desire failing, though in following the will you find your journey never ending, never ending. And so it is: passing through the territory of darkness can seem like an eternity, yet light does slowly appear through the cracks and we emerge scathed, but alive and released.
Friday, February 4, 2011
God and Logos
In reading John 1:1-5 (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it), one cannot help reflecting on Genesis 1. John drives his readers back to a time before time - the immemorial. The logos was there; was with God, and was God. Before John can address the present and all that he has to testify about concerning the logos, he envisions the necessity of moving back to the past. “In the beginning,” is mentioned in verse 1 and underscored in verse 2. “The Word was God,” expresses the deepest understanding of the identity of the logos.
Yet notice this statement is nuanced on two sides in vss1&2: “the Word was with God.” John is relating the Word to God in the most intimate of ways, while at the same time affirming there is a differentiation between Word and God. This relation and distinction existed in the very beginning from before the creation of all things and refers to the reality of the being of God.
John confirms his creational motif in emphasizing that through the logos all that is, was made through him and what was made was not made without him. God's powerful Word in creation leads to life and light. Life is part of the logos and this life of the Word is the creational light illuminated for all people.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What does it mean to hope that something is true?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Knowing and believing in the revealing God through Spirit and Scripture, the world, the other, and the self, are possibilities and accessible realities for us in and through imagination, which is an active agent of these realizations. Any attempt or intent to leave imagination out of the configuration of knowledge and belief is similar to trying to push water uphill. Authentic imagination, therefore, relates to the way things are: it is one of the dynamic elixir’s of our existence; a potential pathway to the discovery of truth, wherever it can be found. Imagination, it seems to me, plays a central part in our ability to participate in the Christian story. God’s revelation calls us to an adventure of life in the created world as it unfolds and develops, and into Christ, as it reaches its transformation.
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