View from the front window of the in-laws’.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Repentance
Although many forms of Protestantism can corrupt the idea of repentance with their sola fide thought, I believe it is our actions that truly tell our person. That is why Christianity is getting a bad name right now– because Christianity is represented by theoretical belief in the teachings of Jesus and dogmatic interpretations of a text that was meant to be argued.
Jews argue over text because you’re supposed to ask questions and get involved with the text. God never wanted us to surrender our minds. God gave us free will for a reason.
God never wanted us to surrender our minds. I often feel as though I can’t talk about my faith in secular settings. It affects the way people interpret my interpretations. It means I have a bias. It means, it seems, that I follow my faith blindly and am ignorant to science and analysis.
I’ve always felt that way, in any case. In order to be a scholar, I cannot speak of my religion. It affects people’s views of the way they think I study.
After reading and learning to be honest with myself, I understand differently. It is because I am a Christian that I must express myself. I have to show our society that all Christians are not a stereotype.
Jews argue over text because you’re supposed to ask questions and get involved with the text. God never wanted us to surrender our minds. God gave us free will for a reason.
God never wanted us to surrender our minds. I often feel as though I can’t talk about my faith in secular settings. It affects the way people interpret my interpretations. It means I have a bias. It means, it seems, that I follow my faith blindly and am ignorant to science and analysis.
I’ve always felt that way, in any case. In order to be a scholar, I cannot speak of my religion. It affects people’s views of the way they think I study.
After reading and learning to be honest with myself, I understand differently. It is because I am a Christian that I must express myself. I have to show our society that all Christians are not a stereotype.
Friday, December 11, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: Wisdom, Word, and Unity
The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: Wisdom, Word, and Unity
The Fourth Gospel begins with one of the most beautifully written passages in the whole of the Bible and sets the tone for the encounter with Jesus. Using language laden with symbol and scriptural parallel, the authors of the Fourth Gospel paint a picture of Jesus as connected to God in a uniquely revelatory way. As Genesis begins with the Word bringing life, so does the Fourth Gospel. However, Jesus brings life not as a creative force, but as revelation of life’s potential fullness and the divine connectedness that can make such expanded life possible. In understanding the “Word,” the scriptural parallels that convey the author’s understanding of Jesus, and the Jewish context of the Gospel, we can bring out the mystical meaning of the text that offers expanded life to those who can widen their circles of compassion and seek the divine within themselves. The Prologue also hints at the tensions and real-world issues that challenged the community from which this text comes: tension with their synagogue community, whom they feel wronged by and whom they considered suppressors of the Jesus narrative who missed the truth manifest in the life of Jesus. The Fourth Gospel is a unique theological perspective not offered by the synoptic authors and often missed by modern Gentile interpretation.
The Prologue’s most obvious literary parallel is with that of the first chapter of Genesis. Both documents begin with the words, “In the beginning.” The author, calling Jesus the “Word,” connects him to the voice that speaks creation in Genesis. John Ashton argues that “creation is indeed one of [the Prologue’s] themes, but it would be closer to the mark to say that it is a hymn about revelation that culminates in incarnation– the incarnation of the revealing logos” (Ashton, 528). I would like to suggest that Ashton is indeed correct about the revelatory nature of Jesus in the gospel, but that Jesus revealed not incarnation but the fused nature of God with Humanity. In calling to the books of Proverbs and Genesis, the author fuses the identity of Jesus with the feminine Wisdom, God-as-verb, and the scriptures of the Jewish tradition and their ongoing capacity for life-giving creativity.
While many Christian circles emphasize the use of “Word” as a sign of Jesus’ fulfillment of scripture, such a suggestion is a misleading representation of the Prologue. The Greek word Logos, translated as “Word,” is “the divine principle of reason that gives order to the universe and links the human mind to the mind of God” (Meeks, 2013). This mystical understanding of divine connection is expanded upon and is a major theme of the Fourth Gospel. Jesus uses “I Am” sayings (the divine name of God) and is called “light” (a common symbol of God in scripture) throughout the gospel narrative, two of the most obvious connections made between the identities of Jesus and God. While such symbols are often interpreted as evidence of incarnation, given the signs of the Jewishness of the author and the consideration that the community from which the text came was primarily Jewish-identifying, it makes more sense to give precedence to a Jewish explanation of such language. The Jewish mystical tradition offers an alternative paradigm that more aptly encompasses the themes and symbols used in the Gospel.
Continuing to dissect the “Word” identified in the prologue, we can further delve into its meaning for the theology put forth by the author. Dabar, the Hebrew corollary of logos, “had power to shape the world, to reveal the presence of God, to call people to a heightened sense of selfhood, a heightened consciousness” (Spong, 44). Again, the Hebrew understanding of the word supports an understanding which sees Jesus not simply as preexistent, but intimately connected to the mind of God and revealer of the presence of God. Jesus’ work “has two aspects, life and light, and these correspond to the two facets of God’s work: creation and revelation” (Ashton, 528). This revelation through Jesus, as the author will show through sign and symbol throughout the rest of the Gospel, breaks down the barriers between human life and the ultimately life-giving light of God, enfolding us into the creative verb, into the oneness of God. Jesus represents the height of human potential. “…In him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (1:4) (Meeks, 2013). In essence: what is manifest in the person of Jesus, the divine quality of selfless love and a deep connection to God, is within each of us and is the ultimate truth toward which Jesus’ life points and which is revealed through his person in the Fourth Gospel. In Jesus, Wisdom, Word, and God are flesh. The boundary, the distance we perceive between God and ourselves, dissipates.
The narrative form of the Prologue calls to Proverbs and parallels the Word with Wisdom. Wisdom, in the Jewish tradition, is feminine. I believe that this connection offers yet another barrier to be broken: the conception of gender. The author here brings together the masculine Word with the feminine Wisdom, bringing their sentiments into a singular form. While Jesus may have been male, the light, the divinity which he reveals, encompasses the feminine. The author of John challenges us to rid ourselves of our dualistic ideas regarding divinity and life and to open ourselves to the reality of a God that is “all and more,”– a God that brings fullness of life and is yet beyond our capacity, unboxed. “God must be understood as a verb, calling, informing and shaping us and all creation into being all that we were created to be” (Spong, 57).
Without considering the narrative form of the Prologue and the claims made by these connections, “we are not in the world of the Fourth Gospel” and we miss the intent of our author (Ashton, 249). Bultmann proposes that “Jesus does not reveal the mysteries of God or man or the cosmos, but one thing and one thing only: that he is the revealer” (Bultmann in Ashton, 53). Jesus does not reveal these “noun” qualities– literalistic understandings– of God. Jesus does not draw a map of the universe or the pathway to Heaven, nor does he box God in an easily digestible way. Instead, the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel displays the life-giving power of God by continually destroying the barriers we’ve constructed and living in the reality of God. This light, this God within, cannot be extinguished or overcome.
Opening our eyes to these ways of interpreting the Gospel allows us to adopt a non-literalistic framework that compels us to see the Fourth Gospel as primarily symbolic in nature. Kasemann asserts that “… John is ‘the first Christian to use the earthly life of Jesus merely as a backdrop for the Son of God proceeding through the world of man and as the scene of the inbreaking of the heavenly glory’” (Kasemann in Ashton, 72). Indeed the author’s goal in storytelling is to offer us a transcendent truth beyond the narrative creations of his Gospel. By drawing from the Genesis creation narrative and the Proverbs Wisdom, we are offered a clearly nonliteral lens through which to find a theology that breaks down our constructs of God and asks us to seek God within ourselves.
While this message is appealing to our modern Christian ears, the evidence in the Prologue is clear: the Johannine community was rejected by their parent Jewish community. The author tells us that “his own people did not accept him” (1:11, Meeks, 2014). Despite the reality that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel continues to pour out compassion and love even through his crucifixion, the Johannine authors clearly feel betrayed and hurt by their Jewish brothers and sisters whose “darkness” it seems tried to overcome the light of the Jesus story. Throughout the Gospel we find an unfortunate dichotomy drawn between “the Jews” and the followers of Jesus, who were also decidedly Jewish, although the text does much to suggest that Judaism need not be a qualifier for the path of Jesus. We can see, however, the Jewishness of the text and the flaws of a deeply hurt population whose community rejected their deeply-held convictions. With the distance we have from the time that the document was written, we can see that the Johannine community, while at odds with the orthodoxy of their synagogue, was none the less a Jewish community who certainly did not reject the whole of Judaism. We see believers hurt by their friends and family who react in human ways that have had a damaging impact on Christian relationship with our Jewish brothers and sisters and has led to anti-Semitism and an unfair portrait of the Jewish faith.
Despite the flaws of the author/s, they still convey a deeply Jewish identity and interpretive framework. In 1:17 of the Prologue, the Word is paralleled with Mosaic Law. As the Law entered the Jewish narrative in a particular time and place, so did Jesus (the Word). Jesus is clear that his glory must manifest only at the proper hour. An author without Jewish connection and respect for the Jewish tradition would certainly not draw a connection between Jesus and the paramount figure of Judaism. Jesus is, however, continually wrapped into the trappings of scriptural figures. It is impossible to reject Judaism and interpret the Fourth Gospel.
The Fourth Gospel’s Prologue offers a unique Christology and an interpretive framework often missed by modern readers, ignorant of the Jewish themes present in the text. Using language that overflows with layered symbolic meaning, the authors of the Fourth Gospel unveil a manifestly connected Jesus in whom is offered a pathway to seek the divine. The Prologue connects Jesus to the Genesis creation narrative, to the Wisdom of the book of Proverbs, and presents through him the great “I Am,” the light that exists within us and was revealed through the life of Jesus– a life overflowing with love and interpreted symbolically through the framework of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus shows us a God that is in us and yet beyond. Connecting with the spirit of God, living aligned with the holy, we approach oneness with the totality; we break artificial, constructed barriers; we become part of God in a new and unique way. The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel offers us a God that is all and more and through which we can find the all and more within ourselves.
Works Cited
Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Meeks, Wayne A. The Harpercollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal/deuterocanonical Books. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
Spong, John Shelby. The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. 1st ed. New York: HarperOne, 2013.
The Fourth Gospel begins with one of the most beautifully written passages in the whole of the Bible and sets the tone for the encounter with Jesus. Using language laden with symbol and scriptural parallel, the authors of the Fourth Gospel paint a picture of Jesus as connected to God in a uniquely revelatory way. As Genesis begins with the Word bringing life, so does the Fourth Gospel. However, Jesus brings life not as a creative force, but as revelation of life’s potential fullness and the divine connectedness that can make such expanded life possible. In understanding the “Word,” the scriptural parallels that convey the author’s understanding of Jesus, and the Jewish context of the Gospel, we can bring out the mystical meaning of the text that offers expanded life to those who can widen their circles of compassion and seek the divine within themselves. The Prologue also hints at the tensions and real-world issues that challenged the community from which this text comes: tension with their synagogue community, whom they feel wronged by and whom they considered suppressors of the Jesus narrative who missed the truth manifest in the life of Jesus. The Fourth Gospel is a unique theological perspective not offered by the synoptic authors and often missed by modern Gentile interpretation.
The Prologue’s most obvious literary parallel is with that of the first chapter of Genesis. Both documents begin with the words, “In the beginning.” The author, calling Jesus the “Word,” connects him to the voice that speaks creation in Genesis. John Ashton argues that “creation is indeed one of [the Prologue’s] themes, but it would be closer to the mark to say that it is a hymn about revelation that culminates in incarnation– the incarnation of the revealing logos” (Ashton, 528). I would like to suggest that Ashton is indeed correct about the revelatory nature of Jesus in the gospel, but that Jesus revealed not incarnation but the fused nature of God with Humanity. In calling to the books of Proverbs and Genesis, the author fuses the identity of Jesus with the feminine Wisdom, God-as-verb, and the scriptures of the Jewish tradition and their ongoing capacity for life-giving creativity.
While many Christian circles emphasize the use of “Word” as a sign of Jesus’ fulfillment of scripture, such a suggestion is a misleading representation of the Prologue. The Greek word Logos, translated as “Word,” is “the divine principle of reason that gives order to the universe and links the human mind to the mind of God” (Meeks, 2013). This mystical understanding of divine connection is expanded upon and is a major theme of the Fourth Gospel. Jesus uses “I Am” sayings (the divine name of God) and is called “light” (a common symbol of God in scripture) throughout the gospel narrative, two of the most obvious connections made between the identities of Jesus and God. While such symbols are often interpreted as evidence of incarnation, given the signs of the Jewishness of the author and the consideration that the community from which the text came was primarily Jewish-identifying, it makes more sense to give precedence to a Jewish explanation of such language. The Jewish mystical tradition offers an alternative paradigm that more aptly encompasses the themes and symbols used in the Gospel.
Continuing to dissect the “Word” identified in the prologue, we can further delve into its meaning for the theology put forth by the author. Dabar, the Hebrew corollary of logos, “had power to shape the world, to reveal the presence of God, to call people to a heightened sense of selfhood, a heightened consciousness” (Spong, 44). Again, the Hebrew understanding of the word supports an understanding which sees Jesus not simply as preexistent, but intimately connected to the mind of God and revealer of the presence of God. Jesus’ work “has two aspects, life and light, and these correspond to the two facets of God’s work: creation and revelation” (Ashton, 528). This revelation through Jesus, as the author will show through sign and symbol throughout the rest of the Gospel, breaks down the barriers between human life and the ultimately life-giving light of God, enfolding us into the creative verb, into the oneness of God. Jesus represents the height of human potential. “…In him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (1:4) (Meeks, 2013). In essence: what is manifest in the person of Jesus, the divine quality of selfless love and a deep connection to God, is within each of us and is the ultimate truth toward which Jesus’ life points and which is revealed through his person in the Fourth Gospel. In Jesus, Wisdom, Word, and God are flesh. The boundary, the distance we perceive between God and ourselves, dissipates.
The narrative form of the Prologue calls to Proverbs and parallels the Word with Wisdom. Wisdom, in the Jewish tradition, is feminine. I believe that this connection offers yet another barrier to be broken: the conception of gender. The author here brings together the masculine Word with the feminine Wisdom, bringing their sentiments into a singular form. While Jesus may have been male, the light, the divinity which he reveals, encompasses the feminine. The author of John challenges us to rid ourselves of our dualistic ideas regarding divinity and life and to open ourselves to the reality of a God that is “all and more,”– a God that brings fullness of life and is yet beyond our capacity, unboxed. “God must be understood as a verb, calling, informing and shaping us and all creation into being all that we were created to be” (Spong, 57).
Without considering the narrative form of the Prologue and the claims made by these connections, “we are not in the world of the Fourth Gospel” and we miss the intent of our author (Ashton, 249). Bultmann proposes that “Jesus does not reveal the mysteries of God or man or the cosmos, but one thing and one thing only: that he is the revealer” (Bultmann in Ashton, 53). Jesus does not reveal these “noun” qualities– literalistic understandings– of God. Jesus does not draw a map of the universe or the pathway to Heaven, nor does he box God in an easily digestible way. Instead, the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel displays the life-giving power of God by continually destroying the barriers we’ve constructed and living in the reality of God. This light, this God within, cannot be extinguished or overcome.
Opening our eyes to these ways of interpreting the Gospel allows us to adopt a non-literalistic framework that compels us to see the Fourth Gospel as primarily symbolic in nature. Kasemann asserts that “… John is ‘the first Christian to use the earthly life of Jesus merely as a backdrop for the Son of God proceeding through the world of man and as the scene of the inbreaking of the heavenly glory’” (Kasemann in Ashton, 72). Indeed the author’s goal in storytelling is to offer us a transcendent truth beyond the narrative creations of his Gospel. By drawing from the Genesis creation narrative and the Proverbs Wisdom, we are offered a clearly nonliteral lens through which to find a theology that breaks down our constructs of God and asks us to seek God within ourselves.
While this message is appealing to our modern Christian ears, the evidence in the Prologue is clear: the Johannine community was rejected by their parent Jewish community. The author tells us that “his own people did not accept him” (1:11, Meeks, 2014). Despite the reality that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel continues to pour out compassion and love even through his crucifixion, the Johannine authors clearly feel betrayed and hurt by their Jewish brothers and sisters whose “darkness” it seems tried to overcome the light of the Jesus story. Throughout the Gospel we find an unfortunate dichotomy drawn between “the Jews” and the followers of Jesus, who were also decidedly Jewish, although the text does much to suggest that Judaism need not be a qualifier for the path of Jesus. We can see, however, the Jewishness of the text and the flaws of a deeply hurt population whose community rejected their deeply-held convictions. With the distance we have from the time that the document was written, we can see that the Johannine community, while at odds with the orthodoxy of their synagogue, was none the less a Jewish community who certainly did not reject the whole of Judaism. We see believers hurt by their friends and family who react in human ways that have had a damaging impact on Christian relationship with our Jewish brothers and sisters and has led to anti-Semitism and an unfair portrait of the Jewish faith.
Despite the flaws of the author/s, they still convey a deeply Jewish identity and interpretive framework. In 1:17 of the Prologue, the Word is paralleled with Mosaic Law. As the Law entered the Jewish narrative in a particular time and place, so did Jesus (the Word). Jesus is clear that his glory must manifest only at the proper hour. An author without Jewish connection and respect for the Jewish tradition would certainly not draw a connection between Jesus and the paramount figure of Judaism. Jesus is, however, continually wrapped into the trappings of scriptural figures. It is impossible to reject Judaism and interpret the Fourth Gospel.
The Fourth Gospel’s Prologue offers a unique Christology and an interpretive framework often missed by modern readers, ignorant of the Jewish themes present in the text. Using language that overflows with layered symbolic meaning, the authors of the Fourth Gospel unveil a manifestly connected Jesus in whom is offered a pathway to seek the divine. The Prologue connects Jesus to the Genesis creation narrative, to the Wisdom of the book of Proverbs, and presents through him the great “I Am,” the light that exists within us and was revealed through the life of Jesus– a life overflowing with love and interpreted symbolically through the framework of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus shows us a God that is in us and yet beyond. Connecting with the spirit of God, living aligned with the holy, we approach oneness with the totality; we break artificial, constructed barriers; we become part of God in a new and unique way. The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel offers us a God that is all and more and through which we can find the all and more within ourselves.
Works Cited
Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Meeks, Wayne A. The Harpercollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal/deuterocanonical Books. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
Spong, John Shelby. The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. 1st ed. New York: HarperOne, 2013.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
Gospel of Mark
Mark hasn’t received enough credit. Mark is the earliest gospel and thus likely more accurate. Written in the 1st century by someone alive during Jesus’ ministry, Mark’s tale had less time to become embellished by history.
It’s important to remember that Mark is not written by today’s standards. Early historians were less concerned about relating detailed imagery and more concerned with conveying what they believed was the point of documenting it to begin with. This can explain some discrepancies between the synoptic gospels and should also help us to be mindful of the larger picture. Whether or not Jesus stood on a rock or a log would have been of little importance to our gospel authors, except in situations where they are meant to draw parallel with another Biblical character.
That said, this does not mean we cannot derive historical information from gospel texts. We need, simply, to be mindful of the differences between modern and 1st century scholarship, as well as the intentions and motives of the early writers. Whatever the early Jesus movement experienced with Jesus’ ministry had lasting effects because of the devotion of his followers. What did these people see that made them give up their wealth, their lives? Early followers faced persecution and death. If they were willing to risk this, Jesus’ ministry must have been profoundly affecting.
It’s important to remember that Mark is not written by today’s standards. Early historians were less concerned about relating detailed imagery and more concerned with conveying what they believed was the point of documenting it to begin with. This can explain some discrepancies between the synoptic gospels and should also help us to be mindful of the larger picture. Whether or not Jesus stood on a rock or a log would have been of little importance to our gospel authors, except in situations where they are meant to draw parallel with another Biblical character.
That said, this does not mean we cannot derive historical information from gospel texts. We need, simply, to be mindful of the differences between modern and 1st century scholarship, as well as the intentions and motives of the early writers. Whatever the early Jesus movement experienced with Jesus’ ministry had lasting effects because of the devotion of his followers. What did these people see that made them give up their wealth, their lives? Early followers faced persecution and death. If they were willing to risk this, Jesus’ ministry must have been profoundly affecting.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Liberation Theology
"While the many different liberation theologies reflect the places where they are found, they share a critical perspective on society and on Christian faith that often challenges the beliefs of other Christians. They remind us that the suffering of the poor is not an accident or an unfortunate fact of nature. It is the result of economic and political systems that deliver wealth and power to the people who control them at the same time that they exploit the poor. Often, it is difficult to understand how these systems work, especially for those in privileged groups whose self-interest lies in not seeing what is happening."
— from An Introduction to Christian Ethics: Goals, Duties, and Virtues by Robin W. Lovin
Saturday, December 5, 2015
HR 3134: Defunding Planned Parenthood Act of 2015
HR 3134: Defunding Planned Parenthood Act of 2015
As a young girl, I dreamed about futures that many of us dream about: a marriage to the gorgeous tall-dark-and-handsome man of my dreams, 2 or 3 well-adjusted children, a job that I could love and could support me and my family, and a modest home in the suburbs. We can call it the American Dream. These days, as I navigate my adulthood, I find that accomplishing these goals is harder and harder to look forward to. I face eternally rising housing costs in my hometown of San Mateo and every surrounding city. I am pursuing education at 30 that was not affordable to me until now. While I may have achieved the wonderful husband I dreamed about, our family planning has failed to meet the timelines that seemed so realistic when I was younger.
Today’s world is complicated. Even “successful” young people like my husband and me struggle to manage our finances and needs as we face our futures. The world that my parents, my grandparents, and many of our lawmakers grew up in is gone. Life is precious; my husband and I feel a strong obligation to provide a life for our children that we know meets the kind of love and care that God wants to see in the lives of all children. At a time when more families find themselves displaced, homeless, and hungry, it seems to me every pregnant person should be able to claim the right of their children to have the care and love they deserve-- and if that care and love do not seem feasible, for whatever reason, whether financial, psychological, physical, or whatever-- people should have the right to choose not to bring life into the world.
In today’s world, many religious traditions, including my own, advocate for individuals to be able to choose when and how they start families and therefore, advocate for abortion rights and availability. HR 3134 threatens to revoke those rights from conscientious, discerning individuals who seek to provide the abundance of life that God desires for us all. HR 3134, which has passed the House and is projected to pass in the Senate as well, would remove funding from Planned Parenthood and other health organizations that offer abortion services with the exceptions of those which perform abortions in instances of rape, incest, or risk of death to the mother. It neglects to consider not only the complicated nature of rape and incest. It neglects to consider both physical and mental wellness of the child-bearer (with the exception of life-threatening issues). It neglects minors in abusive situations who may not have the agency or resources keep their bodies or those of their children away from abusers. It neglects the deep need for us to partake of the abundance of life. In the first 2 chapters of Genesis, which begins my tradition’s sacred texts, God creates humans to flourish, to be well-fed and cared for. That is not the reality for many of today’s children of God.
In an imperfect world, we must provide room for people to be imperfect. We must provide room for parents to choose whether or not they are ready, willing, and healthy enough (mentally, physically, and financially) to provide the abundant life that is exemplified for us at the beginning of Genesis. As I have seen Planned Parenthood locations disappear from even my liberal corner of the country, I see how important it is that we continue to fund safe spaces for people to make informed choices about their futures and the futures of those they might choose to bring into this world, especially those who lack the privilege of affordable, comprehensive medical care. While HR 3134 suggests that “many” state and county health facilities offer services to those in need, anyone who has faced financial difficulty knows that such services are not as accessible as they need to be, even with the help of organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides not only abortion services, but a variety of other health services for communities in need.
The abundant life is one that God desires for all of us-- for newborn babies, for minors in dangerous situations, for underemployed and impoverished people, and for all of us. Planned Parenthood offers services on a sliding scale that help all of us to live abundantly. We should see their work as a service to those in need-- just the kind of thing that I think God would want us to support.
Friday, December 4, 2015
Thomas Merton
"Violence today is white collar violence, systematically organized bureaucratic and technological destruction… abstract, corporate, businesslike, cool, free of guilt-feelings and therefore a thousand times more deadly than the eruption of violence out of individual hate."
— Thomas Merton
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Dao De Jing
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
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