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:
Why do you think many churches nowadays emphasize entertainment over following Christ?
Looking around, seeing your face, touching the blurry surface of otherness gives me a sense of being with you. We are known. Holding hands contact, as we stroll past the graveyard, remembering the past and projecting the future is a significant part of living in this world. The relation and distinction of the two of us is a creational mystery and a redemptive marvel that surpasses understanding.
Displaced and dislocated. Wandering. Home has drifted away, as quickly as the raging wind sweeping over the glacial, barren, white landscape. Shelter has vanished. Still hoping all is well, - but no, no it’s not. Pain seeps uncontrollably through flesh and bones, leaving a fractured heart. This sense of loss runs deep within and shakes the confines of self. Being home-loss is not supposed to happen – broken home is a betrayal and a love-less pseudo reality that devastates the very guts of who we are. Crying for home, tears of sorrow flood the eyes. How we long for a homecoming, not so much as merely a space, though that’s important, but as a community of trust, acceptance, grace, and love, which is offered first and foremost by the audacious trio of the Infinite. When this reality becomes our address, liberated and transformed memories now surpass the treacherous debris of disruption and defeat, as being at home will begin to heal our wounds, to reset our hearts, and to grant us a place to dwell.
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:
Do you think that prayer in a Christian context can be taking a walk in nature?
Provocatively cutting away at the darkness, a given and challenging task, helps create slashes of light. These slivers of illumination, subversive and revolutionary, glisten through ever growing slits in the masquerade, and offer a hope that translates into a new way of being, seeing, and living. Light leads to a destiny, whereas darkness takes us nowhere. Wounding darkness promotes light, embracing light exposes darkness. Here lies the ferocious battle, the DNA of what it’s ultimately all about: life or death.
Pseudo-gospel babblers in church and culture are taking all too many for a ride to nowhere. Practioners of the real call to good news will want to voice care and concern for those trapped in the fake and dubious, while being aware of the risk of blending into the flow of non-sense themselves. If ever there was a time for compassionate confrontation, it is now. There is a desperate need for a fount of spiritual wisdom and the force of a hermeneutics of trust and suspicion, if we are to know how to live the truth in love in a world of increasing hype and spin. Presenting a cutting edge message and an engaging faith will testify to the credibility of this prophetic invitation and to entering a destiny that ends where it all began.
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:
Do you believe the God of Scripture is working through various types of religions to be present in the world?
Storm clouds gather on the horizon, as a howling tempest blows it way into one’s life. Battered around to and fro pushes the limits of security and patience. A turning inside, away from the blustery blasts, only leads to isolation and the stark realization that this is all too big for us. Self-centered selves never find shelter, as this belongs to those who admit their need of help from the Infinite Other, who gives the possibility of a dramatic change of orientation and destiny. The unending mystery of community, in this context, offers freedom from the perils of selfhood, without leaving us selfless.
The real problem for philosophy remains, as it has been throughout time, subjectivity, not objectivity.
Let there be light. Viewing graphic portrayals of light is overwhelming. The inability to take in all of what is there enables us to remember that we’re finite. This truth, all too easy to forget, though for the life of me I don’t know why, shines into our very existence, yet fading memory continues to entice us to reach for autonomy. Paying attention to our limitedness, rather, should be understood to somehow give us our deep significance. In contrast to the darkness of self-reliance and self-determination – the aim to be capital “I”, so propagated in Western culture, we need recognize, perhaps again and again, that it is the Infinite One who tells the story of giving us who we are.
A post post-modern malaise permeates the cultural landscape. Political deceit, economic oppression, and social blindness are gaining ground. While the O(other) was of momentary curiosity, the play now goes on and the discourse of a secular kingdom, demeans what it seeks to enthrone. When beauty is exchanged for debauchery and love for possession, it becomes more than difficult to find our way, since the very fabric of what can release us lies deeply buried under the artifacts of self-interest.
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:
In his book After you Believe / Virtue Reborn, N.T. Wright states on p.202 in the latter:
“To accept appropriate moral constraints is not to curtail true freedom, but to create the conditions for it to flourish.”
What’s your take on Wright’s perspective?
A deep, heavy fog penetrates my flesh and stings my eyes. Yes, I’m outside, but does it matter? Feeling closed like a fragile tulip in light spring snow, I’m unable to see even one meter ahead. This blindness shrouds my very being. Prostrate – leaves me momentarily saturated, as I await an opening for contact and a promised touch of vision to bring hope for clearing.
Drifting away into arctic waters, our hearts and minds slip into glacial uncharted seas. The cold seems as unbearable, as does the lack of direction. Gasps of warmth dissipate and the compass freezes. To be chilled and lost leaves deep traces of disenchantment, piercing flesh and spirit. In the midst of shivers and aimless floating, a gradual but bold divine touch adds renewed substance and clarity to the mission of love, which offers tenderness and an itinerary for shelter to the salvaged.
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 are you most fearful of in 2012, and why?
