Elasticity is an important feature of our belief in God. Imagine faith as a web of intricately woven strands and connections. Delicate, fragile, yet with a viable strength.
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Thursday Thoughts - December 21
Self-reflection is a marvel, but if it is not going to lead to a paralysis of motivation and action, it will need appropriate configurations of trust and suspicion connected to referents beyond oneself.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Living Spiritual Rhythms - December 20
Grace reigns and sin matters capture a flagrant truth of Living spirituality. Because God has put into effect a rescue plan for humanity (and the planet) through fulfilling the covenant promise in Christ and through declaring us righteous, God calls us to live in harmony as family. Battered by sin, yet consoled by grace we have the gift of life to live now. Make the most of it today, while looking ahead to tomorrow with hope.
Monday, December 18, 2017
Reflection for the Week - December 18
The Prologue (1:1-13) of Mark is
a fascinating piece of literary artistry with clout. Take verse 1.
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This seemingly banal comment is a powerhouse. In what ways?
The narrator wants readers (the
Prologue contains privileged insights for readers that the characters in the
story do not have) to know that something new is now beginning to happen.
Neither Matthew, nor Luke is self-referenced as gospel. Consequently, Mark’s
narrative is embarking on a new literary adventure that is attempting to
capture something of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, what is new?
Note that the “of” in the gospel of Jesus Christ, immediately raises a
query. Should readers take this to be suggesting that Jesus is this gospel or
the proclaimer of it? This appears to be purposeful ambiguity that encourages
readers not to choose between the two. Jesus Christ is both proclaimer and
content of the gospel. We shouldn’t always assume that ambiguity in biblical
stories is negative, as it may in fact enhance meaning. Planned ambiguity of
this sort, when it occurs, will help readers to envision truths as both – and.
Jesus Christ is both proclaimer and content of the gospel, and that is
something entirely and intriguingly new that gives rise to thought.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
New Book. Living Imagination. Who Am I & What is Real?
Living Imagination. Who Am I & What is Real?
Resembles Life what once was held of Light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute Self--an element ungrounded--
All, that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?--
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death?
What is Life? around 1805
https://www.amazon.com/Living-Imagination-Who-What-Real/dp/1938367294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512647459&sr=1-1&keywords=laughery
“Do you have an imaginative
identity? Who are you? Are centaurs and dragons more real than technology and
mechanisms? Read this fascinating book to find out!”
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Now Available. Living Mark's Story
Reading the Gospel of
Mark is a fascinating adventure, with the destiny of humanity hanging in the
balance. Where’s it all going? In this narrative commentary, Gregory J.
Laughery wagers that to read and hear this story is to enter a possible world; a world of subversive
reversals of perspective, intrigue, mystery, and strange riddles, with Jesus as
its central protagonist. Far from a simple tale, filled with easy answers or a
basic list of rules to follow, Mark’s story is explosive; combining exquisite
literary creativity and formidable theological force. Readers are challenged to
participate in the recounting and to lose their lives so that they, in turn,
may find them. Thus, this compelling story is a drama to be performed―lived—acted
out. Since the world of self-serving power, fame, and control is decaying, only
the embrace of a possible world and
all it offers, according to Mark, will lead to life after death.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Reflection for the Week - December 11
Drawing conclusions about the world from solely one
perspective is reductionistic. By contrast, Christians want to recognize that
reality has to be viewed from a multiplicity of intricate angles and variable
vistas. Whether climbing a high Alpine peak or walking through a city, much of
what we perceive deserves skillful attention to detail that may first escape
us. Looking again, perhaps, should be
a key feature of the Christian worldview, founded as it is on the exceedingly
complex character of nature and the God who loves and cares for the whole of what
is.
Friday, December 8, 2017
Friday Musings - December 8
Interiors & Exteriors – Speaking for myself, I
spend more than half the time in my imagination, while somehow managing in the
other less than half to find my way around within the empirical world. And, of
course, I’m often doing both at the same time. I can easily pass an hour
internally, without any deliberate focus on the external, though I don’t
usually fall off my bike when riding up the road, or I strenuously focus
externally on a narrowly dangerous mountain path that leaves little room for
internal processing, yet it is still in play. Remarkable. There is indeed a
mysterious and dynamic relation and distinction here between self and self,
self and other, self and world, and self and God. On this register, being a
human being can be a pretty wild adventure.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
New Book. Living Imagination. Who Am I & What is Real?
I have a chapter on William Wordsworth in my new
book:
Living
Imagination. Who Am I & What is Real?
Imagination! lifting up
itself
Before the eye and progress
of my Song
Like an unfather’d vapour;
here that Power,
In all the might of its
endowments, came
Athwart me; I was lost in a
cloud,
Halted, without a struggle to
break through.
And now recovering, to my
Soul I say
I recognize thy glory; in
such strength
Of usurpation, in such
visitings
Of awful promise, when the
light of sense
Goes out in flashes that have
shewn to us
The invisible world, doth
Greatness make abode,
There harbours whether we be
young or old.
The Prelude,
1805, Book VI (525-537)
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