July 2010
14 posts
marriage & mercy || a reading of exodus
Bound || in one direction
To study Exodus is to listen in on a story made up of history clothed in faith[1], pieced together by some capable characters, and resolved by a God who is identified mostly in terms of action and being for a people what they couldn’t be for themselves. It is a story of liberation with a dominant oppressive superpower getting theirs. One of the main characters, the hero...
“the right local questions and answers will be the right global ones. if we want...”
– wendell berry
staging presence
I finished a class last night. For some in the class it was the last class session of their seminary career. There was tears, even for those who have plenty of time at this place. Interestingly, when I visited the school two years ago with my friend Sean we sat in on a class that just so happened to be the same professor, the same class and the same week of the summer as the one I experienced last...
reckless
I am struck by possibility this morning. Behind this possibility is change, the shifting of consciousness and terrain that used to define the categories we operated in. I know that all sounds abstract and maybe event nuanced, so, allow me to speak concretely. Things are changing inside me, shifting, as it were. Maybe it is expressed outside too, but there is an energy that has been lit and has...
lets ride || PR no.1 →
wrote and recorded today havent been doing this...
with all watching
How evil he seemed, with a care for no one. Yet with all watching he began to speed away before she could close the door. She was half in the car and wondering yet trusting the car wouldn’t move until she was safe. She had already taken the time to fasten her little girl in the back—the child bobbing up and down excited to go some where even if it was with this impatient boy-of-a-man...
“god doesn’t have plans for your life … but children usually...”
– j. goldingay
normality
I’m sitting on the couch and Jon walks by with his gallon of water. I can hear Cake playing in the back ground, someone is getting hyped for work in sounds. Jon stops and asks a simple question—one I think to be loaded with significance. He asks, “What is a pirates favorite letter in the alphabet?” I begin to ponder as Jon begins to smile and before I can land my thoughts...
wet pavement
in the vortex drifting closer to you
there’s about two things that haven’t died
caught up in the trouble of a few
crawling through sheets and waking up
from the perplexed nuance—time spent in wonder
and tumbling hail teasing out meaning
these bitter sayings that find little traction
but we’re spinning out now—from the existential high
leaning into...
June 2010
9 posts
genesis 16 || no hands
Hagar names the One who spoke to her at the well. “You are El-roi,” a name meaning god of seeing. To name something is to give it meaning, ascribing value that is only found in the experience you have with the Other. This is the place where her eyes were opened and so whatever god was there is a god interested in seeing, bringing people to new places where things are colored with new...
genesis 4 || salvific birth
As humans were made from the ground so the man is to go back to the ground to work. This poetic end to chapter three throws us into chapter four where we find Cain working the soil. The soil reminds the reader of both the beginning and the end of humans. It is not surprising then that Abel is the first to be returned to the ground, his death symbolizing the disruption that exist in human...
just one'a those
I get a breathless feeling sometimes when I am going through something that is uncomfortable. It is lased with anxiety, that breathless breath. It came not because I was short of breath but because I couldn’t see where I was, why I am… and other existential questions like these. It was one’a those weeks. In the mornings I awoke having felt as if I hadn’t slept, yet...
eyes for you
i got brass tatooed on my finger tips seein if our smiles fit
shared two drinks today kept talking till you say
i want to be here too here with you
and its all right and all wrong singin you another song
of all the ways and everyday on the border of unpromised grace
i researched how to sit next to you not quite sure how to follow through
so let’s ride let’s ride let’s ride in...
how we spend our days || an intertextual study of...
INTRODUCTION: TELOS AND ETHOS—DEATH AS A SHADOW OF THE NOW
Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.” The telos of which we aim, is in some certain way, connected to the ethos of our lived experience. And so it is, when we reflect on our own end—termination or death—the way we die is in some certain way connected to how we have lived. The writers of the...
May 2010
23 posts
“The believer’s cross is no longer any and ever kind of suffering,...”
– john yoder
TELOS & ETHOS || DEATH AS A SHADOW OF THE NOW
Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.” The telos we aim for, is in some certain way, connected to the ethos of our lived experience. And so it is when we reflect on our own end, termination and death—the way we die is in some certain way connected to how we have lived. The writers of the canonical gospels seem to entertain this idea as they...
annex
The story of Jesus told by Luke is quite interesting on many fronts. One of which is the way the writer seems to have the exodus story in the back drop of the two volume narrative he writes. Luke begins the writing of the infancy of Jesus as a parallel story to that of Moses. In Acts 2 at Pentecost (the celebration of Sinai—the point at which the Israelites receive from God, through Moses,...
love love
The reasons behind tears are irrational and therefore very interesting. I teared up viewing a Cigeros video, hearing a Tom Wright quote in class, responding to a friend saying some beautiful words my way, and finally at coffee expressing thoughts surrounding women’s liberation—all in the last 24 hours. If I were to take the rational route I would ask myself if I had consumed to much...
“there is nothing as toxic as a bad metaphor”
– d. augsburger
doing life
I read today that children ‘enter school as question marks and leave as periods’. Behind this statement is a long standing assumption. It goes something like, “you were made to produce” or “your value is intricately connected to what you can do, period.” The bible seems to subvert this whole idea with its central story, the exodus, being one completely at odds...
the oddness of jesus
Our identity is in some way wrapped up in what we think—even what we believe or trust about the world. What I allow my mind to trust, my self will entertain through the practice of these thoughts. When I think of places I imagine symbols first, then, once the symbols that makeup a place are remembered, I step back and perceive the place. There are the pieces of our lives as people and there...
handling the epic w/o hot pads
Things just came crashing down this week. It was like something hit me, hard. I could even feel it physically (hense some sickness) but could only work it out emotionally. It seems that there has been stresses, that appear absent from daily life, yet function as a weighty essence that I carry like a yoke on my neck. And the yoke just snapped leaving a bunch of stuff on the ground and me looking...
“creation is not an end in itself but an instrument of rescue”
– walter brueggemann
kicking the bucket
I took a trip up the coast about six weeks ago with: Steph, Shelton, Janna and Adam- this is them in order from left to right looking at the picture below. The week we spent had a deep sense of with-ness. I remember thinking that there was no place I’d rather be.
The other day I was meeting in a discussion group in this class I am taking on dying. My degree program is quite limited in the...
birds
been getting over you since i met you
its your melody im getting use to
passed the song and lullaby
through the prose and time gone by
to empty open chaos of your redescription
i guess im looking for a depiction
to live and see through
to die and be made new
and for the view to change once more
like birds opening their wings to soar
“when people are named from within ‘by god’, and the outer...”
– richard rohr
riot
I have had dreams of doing certain things. They don’t always make sense, nor do I always have a plan concerning how the next thing might come about. What I do have is a directional view when it comes to the next right step. That step is for me, and those who have felt the same way, a leading tugging concept that pulls till we loose our footing and begin to get lost in the ensuing adventure....
“love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly...”
– thomas merton
April 2010
25 posts
kite strings
This week was right on. I went for a ride early in the week. I aimed my velomachine at the mountain and rode like I meant it. I planned a few papers and a project. The project should be interesting, and perhaps I’ll share a few pieces here on white blazes. I’m going to create an EP exploring the idea of lament. I have a few songs that I need to rerecord and one I intend to rewrite but...
bound like babes
Here I go convincing myself and the other that we should think of all that we knew the first moments of our lives. When we saw our moms and tried out our lungs our first thought was one shared by all, “big, open, new space!?!?”
I read an article recently that argued for a way of seeing that exists outside of the realm of shared human history. This scholar was saying brilliant...
