December 2009
27 posts
“in the law and the prophets, God reaches out to man… in the psalms, human...”
– nahum sarna
us
There is this thing about the Lord’s Prayer that Scot McKnight pointed out in a talk he gave not to long ago.
give us
forgive us
lead us
I thought, of course, prayer is as much an individual thing as it is a communal thing. We look up or look down or look straight into the open air and something begins in me but that very thing is happening in you when you pray. We enter into ourselves...
“You’ve been having trouble staying asleep
You been waking up at...”
– switchfoot
death by paper cuts
It is slow and painful but goes unnoticed and has a numbing effect that renders your senses useless. I don’t mean to say that you can’t feel every nick and slit but somehow you are able to reason your way through each cutting interaction or memory and justify by context, commitment or otherwise. Why do we justify? I think it is because we don’t know how to feel because we have at...
“how long people will you turn my glory into shame, how long will you love...”
– psalm 4
rested & alive
There is the impulse, I think, to write something that is going somewhere and has a point but often I am writing to process. It is inductive then as conclusion emerges as thoughts fine their way to paper or blog. But process is scary, it assumes uncertainty and a journey that has with it all sorts of surprises. You begin the walk the wondering with a certain understanding or imagined reality but...
riding from LA>DC →
having fun with DADGAD this ones for friends and...
“but to love God is not a goal we have to struggle toward on our own because what...”
– fredrick buechner
five voices
There is this sense that certain voices have the ability to alter, encourage or redefine how it is one sees the world. These voices are saying nothing inherently new but in their describing of truth we see things newly. And so as I sat at The Sparrows today and began to listen to the voice of a theologian who continues to help me see newly I thought about teaching and about being a learner in the...
loved
Walking the other day was… different and after reading the first section of ‘Eat Pray Love’ there is a frustrated energy that has taken me up. Is this the spirit of God? Can I start calling these anxious fierce passionate bewilderments the very animation of God among a people? There are moments while walking when I have experienced the loving presence of God in a way so...
finally finished this one played it on my old...
toward hospitable
Displaced and unsettled in my soul-but much more than that being displacement physically this past year and a half rushes to my frontal lobe. The frontal lobe must be where your thoughts duke it out because its right behind your eyebrows. Even now as I type I can imagine the little gnomes shifting my brows back and forth as I think long and hard about my relationship to the world I know and the...
“the seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all.
it is not a...”
– abraham joshua heschel
your mouth are ears though
there is two ways to look at everything. some walk down the street and see concrete others-the transit enterprise of a networked system of movement shifting the contents of the city around as everything else is still. we drew a picture of a duck today and agreed that is what it was a duck… but once the picture was turned it was clearly a rabbit. i want to interpret the times with an openness...
“live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness because how we view ourselves at any...”
– brennan manning
in conclusion
This reimagined narrative agrees with Yoder’s way of describing the direction of the cosmos as an ethic for the way disciples relate to the world, not simply as heralds but as ‘participates’ as Janna points to. We are to then animate the kingdom of God in community as Cray asserts through a holistic way of imitating our Rabbi. This begins the way the gospels begin and end with Jesus’ invitation,...
resolve
Today was one of those days when you have a bunch to do but find yourself slowing just enough to be. And in being and interacting with people who have known you for what feels like your whole life you find yourself being and then being known. Your chest loosens and your guard is down and you are safe. Friends have a way of bringing you into themselves as they share and as they listen. When they...
“the moon is a magnet everyones at it everyones had it
love is a sadness love is...”
– jon foreman
like jewels
Its like walking all day on flat ground and then you find out that the world is a sphere and you have been walking up hill not just today but your whole life. You are but a speck and we but a breeze in the hurricane of life. We are unable to separate from the storm yet once in a while we reach the eye of it all and there is a peace that seems displaced. It shouldn’t be here and neither should you...
frozen water grenades
I was in the Sequoias about a week ago and had a snowball fight in the mountains. Oh how I love snowball fights… they remind me of the inherent enjoyability of the world. Sure water freezes for all sorts of functional reasons but it also freezes for fun. We were in Montana a few years ago, and by we I mean a group of students and friends. One of the days we set up a base camp and a group of us...
“if i had my own world id love it for all that’s inside it
there’d...”
– angels & airwaves
all greens
In the fumbling wonder of the now I find it impressively hard to be centered and timely and true without being a bit bumblily and outside myself. It is like a car on its way to loosing control. It is like falling in love. And it even has shades of insanity. I have never really intended to be sane or reasonable but the people who have loved me best throughout my life have been people grounded and...