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‘Strong views about unicorns derived from a teaching about horses tell us nothing at all about Rhinoceroses.’

A good thing to do, even if you are not Catholic, is to read the transcript of this talk by James Alison called The Fulcrum of Discovery or: how the ‘gay thing’ is good news for the Catholic Church because the maps are being redrawn. A quote from near the beginning:

In the last fifty years or so we have undergone a genuine human discovery of the sort that we, the human race, don’t make all that often. A genuine anthropological discovery: one that is not a matter of fashion, or wishful thinking; not the result of a decline in morals or a collapse of family values. We now know something objectively true about humans that we didn’t know before: that there is a regularly occurring, non-pathological minority variant in the human condition, independent of culture, habitat, religion, education, or customs, which we currently call “being gay”. This minority variant is not, of course, lived in a way that is independent of culture, habitat, religion, education and customs. It is lived, as is every other human reality, in an entirely culture-laden way, which is one of the reasons why it has in the past been so easy to mistake it as merely a function of culture, psychology, religion or morality: something to get worked up about rather than something that is just there.


28 April 2013
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You read Peter Rollins’ blog, right?

Of course you do, because if you didn’t you would miss out on thoughts like this:

In Paul’s definition of the trash-people as the divine collective the crap and the holy are joined together in a type of parallax similar to what we find in the wave-particle duality discovered by physicists.

By employing the logic of Paul we can then claim that the ‘place of no-place’ which the outsider marks is nothing less than the holy site where our world is constantly under threat of being undone.

Theologically speaking the complete outsider, who we treat as dead, thus haunts us as a type of sacred undead. An idea that is beautifully captured in the proclamation of Paul that God chose ‘the things that are not–to nullify the things that are..


21 April 2013
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Merry Christmas stuff

Farmer, preacher, theologian and anti-racism activist Clarence Jordan:

Jesus has been so zealously worshipped, his deity so vehemently affirmed, his halo so brightly illumined, and his cross so beautifully polished that in the minds of many he no longer exists as a man. By thus glorifying him we more effectively rid ourselves of him than did those who tried to do so by crudely crucifying him.

Thanks to Daniel Sturgeon for the quote, which goes along rather nicely with some sermonising I did at my church on Sunday.


21 December 2012
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I aten’t dead.

— Granny Weatherwax. Also, me. Also, I’m going to be Granny Weatherwax when I grow up.


24 November 2012
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Teller, of Penn and Teller, explains how to be amazing at something

Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by a particular poet, film-maker, sculptor, composer. You will never be the first Brian Allen Brushwood of magic if you want to be Penn & Teller. But if you want to be, say, the Salvador Dali of magic, we’ll THERE’S an opening.

I should be a film editor. I’m a magician. And if I’m good, it’s because I should be a film editor. Bach should have written opera or plays. But instead, he worked in eighteenth-century counterpoint. That’s why his counterpoints have so much more point than other contrapuntalists. They have passion and plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, should have been a musician, writing counterpoint. That’s why his plays stand out from the others through their plot and music.

You should definitely go read the whole thing.


27 June 2012
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Creativity #15

Be silly. Be more silly than that. ‘Life is too important to be taken seriously.’ —Oscar Wilde


26 April 2012
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‘The Bible, as God gave it to us, is a rotten rule book.’

—Larry Shallenberger has just written a brilliant riff on improvising the will of God. Quick! Go read it.


3 April 2012
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You monster!

Ciaran Duffy:

illustration by Ciaran Duffy: Monstermask

Peter Rollins:

Whenever we encounter a person as “other” (i.e. as having beliefs and engaging in practices that are foreign to us) we can often experience them as monstrous. In other words, their beliefs and practices appear unfounded and can repel us, confuse us and even frighten us (sometimes for good reason). However there is what Slavoj Žižek calls the authentic multicultural experience. This is where, instead of looking at the other, we experience ourselves being looked at. Here we have the earth-shattering experience of glimpsing ourselves through the eyes of the other and encountering our own practices and beliefs as monstrous. (Keep reading; it’s good all the way through!)


21 March 2012
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Why it's a good idea to get off one’s moral high horse and spend some time down on the ground

‘Crime is a routine behavior; it’s a thing people do when they get used to doing it.’ And therein lies its essential fragility. Crime ends as a result of ‘cyclical forces operating on situational and contingent things rather than from finding deeply motivated essential linkages.’ Conservatives don’t like this view because it shows that being tough doesn’t help; liberals don’t like it because apparently being nice doesn’t help, either. Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry.

—Adam Gopnik, in ‘The Caging of America’ discussing the ideas of criminologis Franklin E Zimring. Definitely worth a read for people who actually want to make a difference, especially the analysis in the second half.


27 January 2012
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Hope for the new year

In the same way, hope doesn’t depend on a sense of entitlement that insists the universe is obligated to provide us with whatever happy ending we think we want, and in any real sense, it’s incompatible with notions of that kind. Hope is the quality of character and the act of will that finds some good that can be achieved, no matter what the circumstances, and then strives to achieve it. The sense of entitlement, in turn, is precisely equivalent to the belief that victory is inevitable, and it produces the same sort of brittleness; it’s for that reason that it tends to collapse into despair, and it’s despair, ultimately, that feeds fantasies of the apocalyptic event that will make everything different.

Emphasis mine. Read the whole essay by John Michael Greer.


30 December 2011
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When we pray ‘Your Kingdom Come’, it implies that we are already praying, ‘My Kingdom Go!’

— Mike Friesen


7 December 2011
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This is what the talented and attractive Jim LePage has to say about nonviolence

In my opinion, responding to evil with evil is one of the least creative things we humans can do. In a very literal sense, it is dumb. If someone is abusive towards me… my instinct is to do the same thing to them. You hurt me, I hurt you. It’s a repeating pattern. That instinct and pattern are so strong that it doesn’t even occur to me that there could be any other options… I think the reason I often think there’s only one response to evil (more evil) is because I don’t allow the creativity of Jesus in on my situations.

See what Jim did there? Nonviolence causes creativity. Read the full post. (The creativity bit is toward the bottom.)


29 September 2011
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The right to speak is a call to the duty of listening.

—Pierre Lacout


25 August 2011
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Dear Christianity, ... Look forward to hearing back, Creativity

… At best, our relationship has been bumpy since the late 1950s. And we’ve gone our separate ways a few times. You spent years revitalizing fundamentalism. And I spent time in London discovering the Beatles. …

Go read the whole letter from Creativity to Christianity by Matthew Paul Turner.


16 June 2011
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This is what every Amazing Event boils down to

All we were given was a chance, thought Polly. No miracle, no rescue, no magic. Just a chance.

From Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

Mr Pratchett is the finest expositor of religion (true and false) that I have ever read.


22 May 2011
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Guess what, kids! I've totally got Jesus figured out.

After Christine read the “article I linked to”: in my post yesterday, she said, ‘That’s such a man response,’ to what Aric Clark wrote about Rob Bell’s story.

And I said something about a wider cultural point.

And she said yeah, but he doesn’t understand girls.

And I said something not very convincing.

Today, I thought, Actually Jesus probably would be where Aric Clark said AND where Rob Bell said AND a bunch of other places that we haven’t thought of. Or he might not have even gone to the dance because who seriously wants to go to a middle school dance? Also he would have had to turn the water into punch.

Which brings me to this: Jesus shows up in unexpected places. e.g. this very Jesusy way of seeing people…

Sometimes while I ride the subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It’s a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. I think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people I’ll meet in my life to appreciate the general public. I wish I thought about people like this more often. I think it’s the opposite of what our culture teaches us to do. We prefer to pick people apart to find their flaws. Cultivating these feelings of love or appreciation for random people, and even for people I don’t like, makes me a more forgiving and appreciative person toward myself and people I love. Also, it’s just a really excellent pastime.

…came from here.


29 April 2011
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Jesus would have been the freak in the middle of the dance floor...

Jesus doesn’t choose to love despite a risk of rejection, Jesus acts to demonstrate that love is not defeated by rejection.

Most importantly, the choice to love despite the certainty of rejection, even a rejection in the form of abandonment, torture, and death, is vindicated in the gospel by God’s resurrection of Jesus. The message is not that loving is risky, because we might get rejected. The message is… love wins.

The most beautiful thing I’ve read all day: Christ on the Dance Floor from Two Friars and a Fool.


28 April 2011
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All that you hate, all that is wrong – I can put it right.

The lying voice of the gonne (gun) from Terry Pratchett’s Men At Arms


13 March 2011
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Either God will defend you, or what you have is not worth defending.

—Bill Johnson


3 February 2010
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Function or dysfunction?

Has the fellowship served to make the individual free, strong, and mature, or has it made him weak and dependent? Has it taken him by the hand for a while in order that he may learn again to walk by himself, or has it made him uneasy and unsure? This is one of the most searching and critical questions that can be put to any Christian fellowship.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together


24 January 2010
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This is a good prayer to pray (for yourself too)

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into Joy

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen.


23 January 2010
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We split and split and split again.

The gospel of grace and the gospel of the kingdom must be joined together. In the Gospels, these two are never separated. Only in later years does it seem that those who have heard the gospel of grace know little or nothing of the gospel of the kingdom. Thus the two have been separated. But the time is ripe for them to be united, so that people are thoroughly saved, forsaking everything and wholly consecrating themselves to the Lord.

—Watchman Nee, Release of the Spirit


23 January 2010
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What's a good size?

‘We believe that our particular group has grown as large as it ought to. We have stopped short of being an organisation; we are an organism instead, a living and spontaneous association of individuals who know one another intimately, care for each other deeply, and feel the kind of respect on for another that makes rules and bylaws unnecessary. A group is the right size, I would guess, when each member can pray every day for every other member, individually and by name, interceding for his personal needs as well as for the success of a particular mission. But what is to prevent 20, 50, 100 such groups from springing up wherever the call is heard – each obedient to its own particular genius, each working in its different way for the coming of the one Kingdom?’

—Brother Andrew, the man who pretty much invented smuggling bibles into communist countries in the mid 20th century, in his autobiography, God’s Smuggler, ch.21 p.251 1970 edition, emphasis mine


22 January 2010
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Seth Godin nails it

Seth Godin is my favourite marketing guru. He wrote this article, and it is so perceptive, I need to quote some bits here:

We frequently confuse internal biochemistry (caused by habits and genetics) with external events. If we didn’t, marketing wouldn’t work nearly as well… We don’t say, “I’m genetically pre-disposed to mild depression,” or “I haven’t exercised in a while and I spend a lot of time watching TV,” instead, we say, “I’m disappointed because I don’t make enough money and my boss is mean to me.” And yet, someone in the very same circumstances seems much happier than we are. And somehow, nothing ever happens in our career that makes everything all right forever… We don’t say, “I eat to drown out the way I feel about my mom,” instead we say, “Hey, if it’s on a salad bar, it must be good for me. And anyway, next month is my birthday”… The external world is remarkably consistent, and yet we blame it for what’s going on inside of us.

Take another minute and read the whole thing.


7 July 2009
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In which I quote Seth Godin at length and ask all preachers to consider what they do on a Sunday morning

From this post: The purpose of a presentation is to change minds. That’s the only reason I can think of to spend the time and resources. If your goal isn’t to change minds, perhaps you should consider a different approach.

  1. The best presentation is no presentation at all. If you can get by with a memo, send a memo. I can read it faster than you can present it and we’ll both enjoy it more.
  2. The second best presentation is one on one. No slides, no microphone. You look me in the eye and change my mind.
  3. Third best? Live and fully interactive.
  4. Powerpoint or Keynote, but with no bullets, just emotional pictures and stories.
  5. And last best… well, if you really think you can change my mind by using tons of bullets and a droning presentation, I’m skeptical.

So, according to Seth, we preachers are putting the best hours of our week into something that is usually between the fourth and last best way of changing people’s minds.

Oh dear.

I think the thing to do is blow him off, because any alternative is a bit unthinkable.


15 April 2009
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Seth Godin on Doing

I like this post by Seth Godin because it fits very well with the things I’m seeing in Luke about the doingness of following Jesus.

Authenticity

If it acts like a duck (all the time), it’s a duck. Doesn’t matter if the duck thinks it’s a dog, it’s still a duck as far as the rest of us are concerned.

Authenticity, for me, is doing what you promise, not ‘being who you are’.

That’s because ‘being’ is too amorphous and we are notoriously bad at judging that. Internal vision is always blurry. Doing, on the other hand, is an act that can be seen by all.

As the Internet and a connected culture places a higher premium on authenticity (because if you’re inconsistent, you’re going to get caught) it’s easy to confuse authentic behavior with an existential crisis. Are you really good enough, kind enough, generous enough and brave enough to be authentically a hero or leader?

Mother Theresa was an atheist, filled with self doubt. But she was an authentic saint, because she always acted like one.

You could spend your time wondering if what you say you are is really you. Or you could just act like that all the time. That’s good enough, thanks. Save the angst for later.


16 February 2009
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We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple

— Neil Cole, quoted in The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch


11 February 2009
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...church is what you do from Sunday to Sunday out in your neighborhood, with your small group, with your tribe of people.

—From an interview with Greg Boyd on the Burside Writers Collective.


10 February 2009
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Seth Godin on the difference between a show and a story

From the article: ‘Putting on a show is expensive, time-consuming and quite fun. And it rarely works.’


9 February 2009
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The way it actually is

The power of the gospel lies, not in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire (certainly not in the threat of being ‘left behind’) which can be removed if only the hearer ticks this box, says this prayer, raises a hand, or whatever… but in the powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, that God’s new world has begun. This announcement, stated as a fact about the way the world is rather than an appeal about the way you might like your life, your emotions or your bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything else. Of course, once the gospel announcement is made, in whatever way, it instantly means that all people everywhere are gladly invited to come in, to join the party to discover God’s forgiveness for the past, an astonishing destiny for the future, and a vocation in the present.

—Tom Wright in Surprised by Hope

It is said that people generally listen to things that reinforce their own points of view. Surprised by Hope by Tom Wright is that kind of book for me. It has reinforced and invigourated the theology that I grew up with. It has reassured me that the things that are in my heart to do really are at the heart of the gospel. It has inspired me to do the work of God’s kingdom like almost nothing else. It has also challenged me to know what I really believe about God and God’s kingdom, because everything we do flows out of what we really believe. (The apostle John said something like that in one of his letters.)

READ THIS BOOK! (maybe even if you don’t think it will reinforce what you believe).


15 November 2008
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Thus saith the prophet Bono:

It`s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can`t find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.

Okay, I don’t know if he is technically a prophet, but the issues he’s raising with the world’s leaders, seem pretty close to the heart of God.


10 November 2008
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When Jesus talks about the truth...

When Jesus talks about the truth, he talks about life. The truth is what brings life. My axiom for today is that Christianity at its core doesn’t explain life but it brings life. We must thus ask whether our beliefs and actions bring life, healing and love to the people in the world. To bring live into the world is to know God for God is love. This is not the knowledge of creeds and theology but the knowledge of a transforming relationship with the source of all love. Truth in Christianity is thus different from the way we understand truth in the world, for the truth of Christianity is life, not description.

—Peter Rollins


13 September 2008
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The ongoing journey to freedom

Are you reading Paul and Sonya Armstrong’s blog posts about how they are getting out of debt yet? Start now!

We tried numerous times to curb our spending; sell things we didn’t need, look at our budget (bought books on budgets and management of money, software and programs). And it came in spurts. When the bills piled up and we felt like we were breaking, we got “real serious” about our spending. But we’d go right back to our pattern. I’d get something at McDonald’s or Chick-Fil-A or Wendy’s for lunch, I’d buy a CD, something for my camera, get office supplies; Sonya would buy inexpensive shoes for the kids, clothes at Target, we’d eat out every now and then (to be with friends, etc). Little things. None of them wrong, but it gave us a small excuse to avoid real change. Change that went beyond numbers. We resisted a first step in a real direction toward change.

At the heart our problems was fear…


27 August 2008
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We make rhetoric out of arguments with others but we make poetry out of our arguments with ourselves.

—William Butler Yeats


10 August 2008
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Jesus is NOT my boyfriend and I will not sing to Him as if He is.

—Bill Kinnon

This is my favourite worship quote in a long time!


25 May 2008
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Once something feels real, making it real is a lot easier.

—Seth Godin


19 March 2008
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...stuck in a linear rut, imposing patterns of one-way flow on a universe that consistently moves in circles

—John Michael Greer

This has stirred up my thinking about a bunch of different things that I hope to write about soon, but for now this will serve as a good reminder for me.


28 February 2008
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You are such an asset to the body

—on a greeting card to Christine from a church* member who is obviously much more pure of thought than we are.

*From our former church in Tucson, Arizona, USA, not i61.


30 January 2008
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Good Writing

I am reading The Book of Dave by Will Self and I am reading to my son the first book of the Nomes, Truckers by Terry Pratchett. tonight I came across some great writing in both of them.

From The Book of Dave:

Dave Rudman looked at the faces paled by resentment, the eyes bright with anger. How’s this going to help? Adding his own can of pain to this slopping tank of loss?

From Truckers:

‘It’s a good job you don’t believe in him, then’ said Masklin
‘Of course I don’t,’ agreed Gurder.
‘Your teeth are chattering though.’
‘That’s because me teeth believe in him. And so do my knees. And my stomach. It’s only my head that doesn’t, and it’s being carried around by a load of superstitious cowards.

Interestingly, a central theme of both books is how religions are formed over time.


13 January 2008
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Parting your soup is not a miracle, Bruce, it's a magic trick.

—Morgan Freeman as God in Bruce Almighty. My favourite line in the film. (We do love the magic tricks, don’t we?)

Be the miracle!

Bonus:

Moses parting his hair


9 January 2008
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