Egregious Reader

I read one of those personality things the other day and one of the categories was the "Need to Percieve." That is definitely me. These are the things I am dying to read about but you can't read multiple books at once (of course you can have them all going, but you can't actually read them all at once): 1. Marriage and Divorce (man are we in a mess! our world is falling a part in this area. don't you realize that when the family falls about or gets stepped on the only alternative is the state and that our country is in love with the state because its man-made ... just think of all the things the state handles even now ... it only gets worse when you consider stats on single mothers and dirvorcees. I have multiple on my list ... a book on Divorce Culture and Leon Kass's commentary on Genesis) 2. The shape of liturgy (I have one book Liturgical Theology that needs a second read and another Liturgy for Living that needs a good purusal). So much to learn! 3. Dis

I was reading my biography on Bonhoeffer last night and one story has lodged itself in my brain. I keep wanting to share it, but don't know who wants to listen ... so here's to you. Bonhoeffer was a brilliant theologian who was imprisoned by the Ghestapo at 37. Someone smuggling Jewish people across the border was stopped and questioned and Dietrich's name came out. He was part of a conspiracy to assasinate Hitler through an internal military coup. His brother-in-law was part of the conspiracy as a legal advisor and actually there was an earlier attempt to take the Furrer to court and have him declared insane by a board of psychologists (heading the board was Dietrich's father). So this was going on all around him. And the other thing was that Dietrich had strong connections and the conspiracy needed the allies to know that the coup was in the works and communicate them (which he was able to do through Rev. Dr. Bell in England). Plus ... the insanity of watching Europe

"in order to promote killing in civilized societies it must be legalized under deceitful names. Yet liberal societies seem happy to be deceived exactly to the degree to which they have developed into societies of covetousness." Ok ... I know you need more before you know where this is going ... I am reading a book of essays on the ten commandments. This is in a section talking about the relatedness of all ten commandments, primarily through the command not to murder. He goes from there to make the point that we are a society dominated by want and covetousness and the more the claws of greed entangle us (from human traffiking to slave labor for our cheap consumer goods, to "designer babies" and whatever else technology deems to sell) the more we will redefine sin and morality. Bernd Wannenwetsch continues: "the culture of death is essentially marked by the business of redefinition. In defining our own humanity we claim the property rights that entitle us to dist

“It is not contrary to disicpleship that we should, again and again, experience ourselves as simple caught in the tension between the reality of our sin and the reality of God’s forgiveness. What is contrary to the path of discipleship is that we should rest content in that static condition, that we should not in prayer strain against it as we ask Christ’s Spirit to make the history of redemption an ever more effective reality in what we think, say and do. ‘Strive,’ says the Letter to the Hebrews, ‘for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.’” We must strive for more redemption, for more of Christ’s Spirit guiding our thoughts and words and deeds. This is from Meilaender in a book on the Decalogue.

Meanness and sorrow seem to be a part of human beings ... our history is an incredible blending of ghastly ugliness and incredible beauty ... of meanness and love. I once heard that was much of the thinking behind John Cage and his noisy popularizers like Spiritualized and Sonic Youth ... pour out sheer noise and see if you shake out a few glimpses of beauty that stand brighter and truer for falling among such thorny sounds of chaos. It is in these moments of insight that the cross is so powerful. In answer to ugliness and beauty, Christ, the shining face of God, looks down upon us bleeding and marred with mercy upon his lips while we continue in all our meanness and ugliness. This idea of mercy bleeding enthroned between heaven and earth, between God and man, just before he disappears from sight, swallowed up by the ultimate enemy of Creation ... the dread beast, the aghast horror that is sins culmination. "No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up." (Job 41) And this

For us: I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, we may be strengthened in our inner beings with the power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, as we are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that we may have power to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. From Eph. 3

I am looking again at The Future of Success to prepare my sermon on Jesus cleansing the Temple in John 2. The Future of Success is a book by Robert Reich on the shaping of our souls by american business. I don't think he ever sets it up that way, but thats what its about. I really want to read it straight through ... it feels like a book everyone should try and read sometime. "Society as a whole suspects that something is awry when it's shocked by events like children in an upscale suburb opening fire on other children at school. Such events are sadly expected in poor inner-city schools, but not in tony, carefully sorted suburbs. For a time, pundits, preachers, and politicians wonder publicly if our values are wrong, if we lack "balance" in our lives, if we're failing to spend enough time and energy on the "important things," such as our children. Then the crisis subsides, the headlines disappear, and we all go back to paid work, often more frenzied

“Some brothers . . . went to see Abba Felix and they begged him to say a word to them. But the old man kept silence. After they had asked for a long time he said to them, “You wish to hear a word?” They said, “Yes, abba.” Then the old man said to them, “There are no more words nowadays. When the brothers used to consult the old men and when they did what was said to them, God showed them how to speak. But now, since they ask without doing that which they hear, God has withdrawn the grace of the word from the old men and they do not find anything to say, since there are no longer any who carry the words out.” Hearing this, the brothers groaned, saying, “Pray for us, abba.” (Ward, The Desert Christian. . .P 41 of To Know As We Are Known) God help us. We are in need of much intercession. Ours is a age in love with faith, but not in love with the object of faith. We like to be spiritual, to put it on like a pretty garment. It is the new word for the open-minded renaissance man or woman. Bu