Thursday, February 28, 2008

Hospital

Dallas Willard calls on Christians to see their church as a hospital, a spiritual hospital. It should be a place to care for other people. Some are hurting. Some have been wounded by the world, and by others. Some need medicine and all need good refreshment and rest.

Hospitality... the share root word of hospital also. . . that's where we can gain our inspiration from the culture of church and church fellowship and community.

If we've lost our sight as people of God in community... we have to gain it here first I think. It is time to get well.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Really Real reality

In a world where all things are considered equally truth nothing can be false.

In that world everything is negated.

Negation voids value.

Without value we lose meaning.

Not just meaning of truth,but of reality. Reality as we have known it.


Now it is time to find out what is really real.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Reality as you like it or as it is?

Neitzsche (1844-1900) defined truth as a "mobile army of metaphors" and it seems this the way we have "deconstructed it" or perceived it. However if this is truth, or actual reality, it is a moving not a fixed point. If that is true than you or anyone can pick a point for truth arbitrarily. If truth is arbitrary as Neitzsche believed, a train plunging into a dark tunnel never to emerge, then meaning itself is arbitrary and meaningless. Life is pointless and absurd. It has no set value. Philosophers should stop their work and we should all kill ourselves, right? This mindset's verdict claims truth and reality is meaningless. But doesn't it seem like there must be more to it than that?

Beauty and goodness point to something more. Our dreams, hopes, and stories beg for more. Our songs, arts, histories and epics have heroes that triumph over villains. We must ask why? It cannot just be vain hope. That's too simple an answer. Reality seems to have an ideal, and an ideal indicates a fixed point, not mobile army of metaphors. The mobile army explanation is helpful for cynics and a way to band-aid one's despair, but it takes us literally nowhere. It does not take us to reason because it doesn't really make sense. It does not take us to reality.

Deconstruction can be very helpful, but we've hardly attempted to deconstruct the history and culture that has deconstructed the nature of our current perceptions of reality and truth. Most of the time we take these paradigms and beliefs for granted like fish in a bowl who do not know they are wet. After we notice how we have been reduced and were we have been carried by our mobile army we may discover Socrates is closer to the truth than we are.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

lectio divina

I will be studying Lectio Divina for my 8 week personal and research project. If anyone is interested in learning more about this spiritual disciple of the early church, we can journey together. You can write and let me know.

This has been wonderful discovery of focusing on a scared text of a few lines and reading it while allowing God to speak into it and through it. There are 4 movements to it. And the prayer life that happens from this communion with God I've found very intimate and restful.

I'll keep you posted and add details soon.