December 2010
3 posts
Chartres Cathedral, p. II →
Seems Chartres Cathedral is getting a lot of attention these days. Stumbled across an interesting article about Prince Charles’ new book, which focuses on the sacred geometry of spaces like Chartres Cathedral.
The article—combined with the great poem I encountered the other day—are making me want to pay a visit. Anyone up for a trip to France?
God in Godself
Having become aware of the inadequacy of much of our language about God this semester, I have been making a conscious effort not to speak about God in gendered pronouns. I’ve never liked using neuter pronouns, but the author of one of our textbooks (Stephen Bevans) used the construction “Godself” in place of “himself” or “itself.” It has grown on me over...
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Chartres
Chartres, by Glenn Shea
There among the aisles and chapels it still goes on, the old life, amidst the medieval racket of post cards and sacred crockery, the gabbled cloud of foreign tongues and people peering at dark corners; the old life persists, mostly among the old; the woman leaning to kiss the Virgin’s brocaded hem; the murmur of the devout; white candles and the clink of...
November 2010
6 posts
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State of Formation →
I’m super excited to be involved with the new “State of Formation” project. The project:
…is a forum for emerging religious and ethical leaders. Founded by the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, it is run in partnership with Hebrew College and Andover Newton and in collaboration with the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
There are somewhere in the neighborhood...
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“In imagining possibilities, human beings act as the prophets of their own...”
– Paul Ricouer
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Love for all God's people...
Once when I was there where I was, some foreign missionary came and said to me, “You may be a good woman, but you’re not a good Christian.”
I said, “Why?”
“Because you have been here so long and you only go about speaking English. What local languages have you learned?”
I said to him, “I haven’t managed to learn any of the local languages,...
Coolest billboard ever →
October 2010
10 posts
3 tags
A Third Way for the 'Christian Nation' Debate →
Upside down, err... dome? →
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The "Stained Glass Ceiling" →
Appreciated this article on the role of women in Church leadership. While I don’t agree with everything the author argues, I do appreciate the exhortation that the Church would do well to “examine its conscience” on this issue.
Interesting to note that the Greek Orthodox Church has begun (albeit in limited fashion) to return to the historic practice of ordaining women to the...
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“Cyril and Methodius are a classic example of what is today referred to with the...”
– Pope Benedict XVI (via merecath)
“The flesh is the hinge of salvation.”
–
Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, VIII, 1, ln. 6
(via dangreeson)
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Icons in interreligious perspective →
Cool piece of Huffpost about an exhibit in NY. Wish I had a chance to go check this out…
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Armless Pianist Wins China's Got Talent →
I’m speechless…
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What will you do? →
Discovered a great new blog @nonprophetstat this weekend thanks to a recommendation from a friend. I don’t know what this says about my faith development - and I’m not quite sure I need to know - but I find myself more and more regularly asking the same questions…
Stop talking. Start doing.
September 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Live the Questions...
“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything....
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Heaven, Hell, & God's Love →
Great article on the HuffPost summarizing an Orthodox understanding of Hell
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Fanaticism in perspective... →
August 2010
3 posts
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Adaptability
Men are born soft and supple; Dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible Is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding Is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.
—Tao Te Ching, 76
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On the Transfiguration, by Scott Cairns →
As We See
The transfiguration of our Lord — that is, the radiance in which he was bathed at the pinnacle of Mount Tabor — did not manifest a change in Him, but a change in those who saw Him. —Isaac the Least
Suppose the Holy One Whose Face We Seek is not so much invisible as we are ill equipped to apprehend His grave proximity. Suppose our fixed attention serves...
July 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Creating space for truth
I’m nearing the end of my first course at BC—and it has truly been one of the most transformative learning experiences of my life. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by this fact, given that the subject of our learning is, in fact, transformative learning…
As we near the end of the course, we are moving away from some of the theoretical and foundational concepts and...
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la voix: Eating is an Agricultural Act →
“Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth.” - Wendell Berry
What can we do to eat more responsibly? Berry proposes these 7 habits:
1. Participate in food production
2. Prepare your own food
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food…
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Oldest Apostle Images Revealed →
via news.nationalgeographic.com
June 2010
2 posts
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Some Further Words
Thank you, yet again, Wendell Berry:
Let me be plain with you, dear reader. I am an old-fashioned man. I like the world of nature despite its mortal dangers. I like the domestic world of humans, so long as it pays its debts to the natural world, and keeps its bounds. I like the promise of Heaven. My purpose is a language that can repay just thanks and honor for those gifts, a tongue set...
April 2010
2 posts
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Concerts as Protests?
I heard a fascinating report on the BBC World Service this morning - seems a lunchhour concert of the Jerusalem Quartet was interrupted earlier this week. Listen here.
Here’s a link to an article documenting the event. Seems the musical interrupter (who has a fabulous voice) was voicing her protest against the group, who serve as artistic ambassadors of Israel. Apparently, they’ve...
March 2010
2 posts
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The Guest House
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame,...
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We who prayed and wept...
We who prayed and wept for liberty from kings and the yoke of liberty accept the tyranny of things we do not need. In plenitude too free, we have become adept beneath the yoke of greed. Those who will not learn in plenty to keep their place must learn it by their need when they have had their way and the fields spurn their seed. We have failed Thy grace. Lord, I flinch and pray, send Thy...
February 2010
1 post
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On pleasure... *sigh*
One of the Butterflies
by W. S. Merwin
The trouble with pleasure is the timing it can overtake me without warning and be gone before I know it is here it can stand facing me unrecognized while I am remembering somewhere else in another age or someone not seen for years and never to be seen again in this world and it seems that I cherish only now a joy I was not aware of when it was...
January 2010
2 posts
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Listen
by Philip Schultz
A woman in my doctor’s office last week couldn’t stop talking about Niagara Falls, the difference between dog and deer ticks, how her oldest boy, killed in Iraq, would lie with her at night in the summer grass, singing Puccini. Her eyes looked at me but saw only the saffron swirls of the quivering heavens. Yesterday, Mr. Miller, our tidy neighbor, stopped under our...
December 2009
1 post
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Hope & Moral Imagination
In case you can’t make time to read all of President Obama’s Nobel prize acceptance speech, here’s the “cliff notes” version and my personal favorite section:
“…given the dizzying pace of globalization, and the cultural leveling of modernity, it should come as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish about their particular identities...
November 2009
8 posts
“Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who...”
– St Isaac the Syrian (via merecath)
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Fewer cow burps = greener planet? →
Since I started running, Stonyfield yogurt has becoming a daily part of my diet - organic, yummy, fat free, and only 120 calories…
A recent blurb on a yogurt lid led me to discover their cool website. Just stumbled across this article, which describes changes they implemented to the diets of many of their cows and the resulting effects on their carbon footprint.
Healthier foods = less...
“It is not the moutain we conquer, but ourselves.
You don’t have to be a...”
– Sir Edmund Hillary (as seen on a shirt, somewhere around Mile 17)
The best part about running a marathon has to be the post-run meal - 4500 calories never tasted so good…
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WatchHere’s the San Antonio marathon course - getting SUPER excited for this weekend.
(PS - does anyone else find the four bars of music looping in the background disturbingly irritating?)
October 2009
3 posts
Not a good headline to read on the morning I run a marathon: “Marathon Deaths Spark Questions http://su.pr/1AoRK6 (via @nprnews)”
Where do u find this stuff? Seriously frightening… RT @jshoag “Conservative Bible Cuts Liberal Passages.” http://bit.ly/hjc4f
September 2009
8 posts
4 tags
The Silence
Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words.
Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech
Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say
“It is golden,” while the leaves stir and fall with a sound that is not a name.
It is in the silence that my hope is, and my aim. A song whose lines
I...
