Saturday, October 31, 2020
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Thursday Thoughts - October 29
Barriers to belief in God may plague us throughout our lives. Forgone solutions and conclusions will only increase our difficulties, instead of resolving them. After all, our access to the possible world of Eden is beyond reach and we are hampered by a real world inability to get outside of ourselves in order to have an ultimate vantage point that will put all the pieces in place. Since this is true, we are likely to experience times of struggle and questioning, which occur on different levels, but choosing an alternative of automatic pilot spirituality or a rationalistic apologetic where everything makes sense is a foil. There is no such thing. Thus, as we ramble through our days, sometimes villains or sometimes disciples, we don’t want to give in to the pressures of unbelief, as powerful as they may appear to be, for the roadblocks on the path can turn into signposts that point in the direction that belief in God is a warranted mystery in the midst of this wild, wonderful, and complex world.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Living Spiritual Rhythms - October 28
Engaging a post-trust culture means facing my valid and invalid suspicions and trying to re-direct them, where necessary, to an ontology of critical trust. Arrogant appeals made to institutions, politics, or churches, no longer has traction, whereas personal encounter and investment as oneself as another carries significant weight. Hammering out together the cogency, or lack thereof, concerning plausible explanations of reality has to take place one step at a time. There are no fast and easy solutions to complex issues. Starting with being human and living in the world is as good a place as any to begin the journey towards transformation.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Reflection for the Week - October 26
In a post-truth world the notion that all interpretations are equal is a widely held perspective and unfortunately flourishes in many Christian contexts. How frequently we hear, “well, that’s just your interpretation.” This view, however, does not lead to freedom, as it is so often assumed, but to the bondage of hyper-subjectivity. To flatten everything out and see it as the same is a travesty as it goes against the undeniable role of differentiation that is part of reality, selfhood, and the beauty of life. There are, after all, better and worse interpretations. Thus, acknowledging a place for degrees of objectivity in the interpretive process will actually be freeing, not enslaving.
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Thursday Thoughts - October 15
Interpreting something does not make it what it is. The interpreter is always related to, but distinct from, the interpreted. This may seem mundane, but it’s explosive because it informs us about a crucial aspect of what humans and the world are like.
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Living Spiritual Rhythms - October 14
When Christian caring for others becomes ultimately about self-preservation, either privately or institutionally, something has gone terribly wrong. The other, as a Christ follower should well know, is not an object for selfish use or a commercial enterprise for profit, although there is plenty of hidden or sometimes even blatant rhetoric that attempts to endorse these views under the subterfuge of care. Such a distortion of caring will eventually be shown up for what it is: hypocrisy. Fresh directions are available. Starting with a hermeneutics of charity will go a long ways towards developing a fruitful dialogue with oneself as another, where mutuality becomes one of the keys that unlocks real care.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Reflection for the Week - October 13
Unless the church confronts the greed of the world, instead of participating in it, a Christ centered concern for the voice of the poor and oppressed will be gagged and the exploitation of the weak and disenfranchised will continue unabated. If ever there was a time for the Western church to be reading the biblical text not merely for itself, but against itself, it is now.
Friday, October 9, 2020
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Thursday, October 8, 2020
Thursday Thoughts - October 8
Artist Georges Braque quipped: “Art is meant to disturb; science reassures.” But in today’s world I wonder if it’s fair to say that art can also reassure and science can also disturb, depending on “who” the observer is at any given time. I’d wager art and science “excess” opens mystery, without ever “resolving” it, which is both comforting and unsettling. That is, the art and science bi-directional tension is one that mirrors life itself.
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Living Spiritual Rhythms - October 7
A supposedly insurmountable antagonism towards self – self-hate – read as a continual experience of fault and denial, undoes dialogue and strikes at the heart of selfhood. When trust and suspicion cancel each other out, there will be little or no capacity to change self-hate. What and who to trust and what and who to be suspicious of, if suspended in this manner, result in a default adherence to the status quo. To break the cycle of the same, it must be realized that trust and suspicion orientations cannot rest solely on the self, and other informers have to be taken into consideration. An embrace of a dialogue with these reliable informers can help to validate appropriate trust and suspicion, and thereby expose self-hate as a lie, eventually replacing it with a finite, yet genuine picture of a truer self to love and be loved, in the configuration of oneself as another.
Monday, October 5, 2020
Reflection for the Week - October 5
On the one hand, the biblical text resists being collapsed into just another ANE or GR text, though it is one, and on the other, it is unable to attain the status of a pure revelation from God, however, it does reveal. Some of the biblical stories may be exaggerated or even outlandish, but there is still in the overarching mega story a testimony to God in time – something happened to produce the narrative recountings of such a common, yet remarkably unique character. Thus, this perspective invites one into a tension, without guarantees.
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Thursday Thoughts - October 1
The essence of Mutuality is not an exchange, but a “recognition” comprised of the fragility of giving to and receiving from the other. There’s no buying and selling involved here because the festive gesture of mutuality belongs to that which has no price.
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