"Is this Lenten reading nothing more than a memorial?" I gaze at a title and can't find the will to read ahead. Something is amiss.
"You can't get to God by works righteousness" a girl says with a fire in her eye. I agree in a sense and disagree in a sense. My tongue cannot find the double-sided nature of the topic; it is not refined enough.
Other communities. They pick up on Lent recently. Time for memorial of Christ's time in wilderness, time for prayer so God might hear, time to invent new fasts. The fasting of foods comes as a mimicry. There is no understanding of the importance of physicality. "Desires of flesh" and physical matter are made conceptually synonymous.
I cannot find the will to read more. Yet it is late and I am up, why not read?
The others' images and prayers are fosaken unless fueled by empty stomachs. There is some talk about trust and giving up food in reference to prayer as a justification. There is some more talk about God honoring trials and total reliance on God. I listen to the end. Something is lacking. The words are new, but I am picking up some meaning. It seems pointless though.
I spend Lent on the pew asking forgiveness and regretting not having something in place. I wish I had taken to something with friends. My own will has become my enemy.
Dualism. Mimic Christ with a clean "this is spiritual and that is flesh" division. A mimic who praises Christ's crucifixion but hates the flesh, who praises creation but denounces the physical world, who loves people but hates bodies.
I am reading Watchmen to Megan. Dr. Manhattan is giving his long narrative refutation of the cosmological and teleological arguments; both strangely graphed together. His time and space concept imply all time is one, all things occur, there is no changing them. "What am I Jon, a puppet?" I discover a logical gap.
I'm in a pew panicking. My lack of planning ails me. Why did I not plan in advance? Now the thoughts trying themselves on become rushed, insincere, vapid. What can I do for Lent? What must one do to prepare for the crucifixion?
The Word became flesh so we can all float up high to heaven. Docetism returns. I hear the man justifying the practices, I hear the words coming back to my ear from kids at work. "All that matters is you love Jesus," but then I hear condemnation of that which Jesus loved.
I close a laptop and lay down a controller. I pick up my phone and begin looking through the directory. Who can I call? Who is my friend? I have agreed to lay down self-entertaining things to pursue friendship.
A man is sailing to the coast of California. It is the 19th c. and he is trading fur hides. He has undergone a two year period of training and can stand his own among the salt dogs, having earned his sea legs. He has seen Cape Horn and lived to tell the tale. There is a rowboat of sailors fighting the waves to get back to the main ship. One man rows while two men hold lightweight but rigid animal hides high above their heads. The sky and waters are clear, but the rocks and waves are choppy.
What does it mean to have a relationship with Christ? I hear a man tell me he once saw someone put a chair across from them and talk at it like it was Christ. I recall what I have heard, Christ talking through mental images and strong emotive feelings brought on by the right chords. The Body is the people of the Church. To have a relationship with Christ, is to have a relationship with the Body. To have a relationship with the Body - well.
The one crying "no works righteousness" is often the one most practicing it. A memorial has no empowerment, no redemption, no glory. But the orthodox Lent supposes Christ's embodiment, his indwelling in the flesh, empowers us first. Thus, our fasts are not "works righteousness," it is the memorial services which are. The eucharist also comes to mind.
I am cooking eggs and talking. Dr. Manhattan conceives of all time at once. This unity of time makes for no causality, for causality implies changes in space and time. But he narrates causal changes but concludes as if there were none. Unity of time means no infinite regress follows from denying the cosmological argument's premise that not all things are contingent as well as a denial that some watchmaker can be inferred from a watch. Causality in essence, is an illusion for Dr. Manhattan. But then the author presumes knowledge is causative. I know one day I will die. My knowing this, even if I were present in the moment now, would not deny causality, it would only give me an interesting perception of causality. My ability to say "I am dying now and not now" if I could be present to be at 25 and me at death uses the term now "relative" to two different moments in time, not to moments in my perception of time.
Perhaps the readings have awoken something after all. Reflection. Contemplation. Next Lent should be more interesting still. It will build upon this one. Perhaps some day I'll come to understand it better.
The man became a lawyer and promoted religious and moral instruction for sailors. He also fought for sailors' rights. His two years before the mast seem to have been more of a relationship with Christ then standing quietly in a room day in and day out conjuring up mental images and asking God to do things just to see how 'cool' God is. Tempting God comes in many flavors, namely one is to ask for something to be done, or ignore the physical world, instead - "waiting on God." Have you not been baptized? Were you not given a community? Can you not see your brethren are the Body of Christ, the character of your soul - the effects of the gifts of the Spirit? You wait for magic, not God. But now I am harsh, for I too am learning this. There is an earnest desire to see from God, but the hatred of the intellect makes it hard for anyone to seek God other than by tempting you Lord to do ridiculous things, to ask for movement but be blind to your actions.
Memory played the flute but you did not dance for her. I was told only loving Christ mattered, it's about a relationship, to pray often, that my behavior matters, yet...well. Spirit and Flesh, Mind and Matter, Black and White Yin & Yang. "Spiritual things matter, not the body. By the way we frown on certain bodily actions and require other bodily actions." Interesting example on how faith without intellect, faith alone, contradicts the gospel, contradicts the scriptures, unaware of its dualistic, docetic assumptions. And then they affirm the assumption using that lens to read Scripture, and trust nothing but Scripture and experience. But their experience is also seen through the same lens. We sometimes only affirm what we already believe, and cease to be challenged in any direction other than "deeper into what I already know." Heh, by know the meaning is usually 'feel, experience, read," all which collapse into the assumptions.
And so many other absurdities pile up.
I am at a pool with two friends. We are playing a video game together. We are pushing bread together to make sandwiches. There is exchange of future, doubt, and reflection on where we are. I am experiencing a relationship with Christ. The rest was 'baptized magic.' But it does not really matter here. I can nod at the 'magic' comments and love my people, for collectively, they are the Body. And there is no division between body and spirit.
So have the three years been.
"You can't get to God by works righteousness" a girl says with a fire in her eye. I agree in a sense and disagree in a sense. My tongue cannot find the double-sided nature of the topic; it is not refined enough.
Other communities. They pick up on Lent recently. Time for memorial of Christ's time in wilderness, time for prayer so God might hear, time to invent new fasts. The fasting of foods comes as a mimicry. There is no understanding of the importance of physicality. "Desires of flesh" and physical matter are made conceptually synonymous.
I cannot find the will to read more. Yet it is late and I am up, why not read?
The others' images and prayers are fosaken unless fueled by empty stomachs. There is some talk about trust and giving up food in reference to prayer as a justification. There is some more talk about God honoring trials and total reliance on God. I listen to the end. Something is lacking. The words are new, but I am picking up some meaning. It seems pointless though.
I spend Lent on the pew asking forgiveness and regretting not having something in place. I wish I had taken to something with friends. My own will has become my enemy.
Dualism. Mimic Christ with a clean "this is spiritual and that is flesh" division. A mimic who praises Christ's crucifixion but hates the flesh, who praises creation but denounces the physical world, who loves people but hates bodies.
I am reading Watchmen to Megan. Dr. Manhattan is giving his long narrative refutation of the cosmological and teleological arguments; both strangely graphed together. His time and space concept imply all time is one, all things occur, there is no changing them. "What am I Jon, a puppet?" I discover a logical gap.
I'm in a pew panicking. My lack of planning ails me. Why did I not plan in advance? Now the thoughts trying themselves on become rushed, insincere, vapid. What can I do for Lent? What must one do to prepare for the crucifixion?
The Word became flesh so we can all float up high to heaven. Docetism returns. I hear the man justifying the practices, I hear the words coming back to my ear from kids at work. "All that matters is you love Jesus," but then I hear condemnation of that which Jesus loved.
I close a laptop and lay down a controller. I pick up my phone and begin looking through the directory. Who can I call? Who is my friend? I have agreed to lay down self-entertaining things to pursue friendship.
A man is sailing to the coast of California. It is the 19th c. and he is trading fur hides. He has undergone a two year period of training and can stand his own among the salt dogs, having earned his sea legs. He has seen Cape Horn and lived to tell the tale. There is a rowboat of sailors fighting the waves to get back to the main ship. One man rows while two men hold lightweight but rigid animal hides high above their heads. The sky and waters are clear, but the rocks and waves are choppy.
What does it mean to have a relationship with Christ? I hear a man tell me he once saw someone put a chair across from them and talk at it like it was Christ. I recall what I have heard, Christ talking through mental images and strong emotive feelings brought on by the right chords. The Body is the people of the Church. To have a relationship with Christ, is to have a relationship with the Body. To have a relationship with the Body - well.
The one crying "no works righteousness" is often the one most practicing it. A memorial has no empowerment, no redemption, no glory. But the orthodox Lent supposes Christ's embodiment, his indwelling in the flesh, empowers us first. Thus, our fasts are not "works righteousness," it is the memorial services which are. The eucharist also comes to mind.
I am cooking eggs and talking. Dr. Manhattan conceives of all time at once. This unity of time makes for no causality, for causality implies changes in space and time. But he narrates causal changes but concludes as if there were none. Unity of time means no infinite regress follows from denying the cosmological argument's premise that not all things are contingent as well as a denial that some watchmaker can be inferred from a watch. Causality in essence, is an illusion for Dr. Manhattan. But then the author presumes knowledge is causative. I know one day I will die. My knowing this, even if I were present in the moment now, would not deny causality, it would only give me an interesting perception of causality. My ability to say "I am dying now and not now" if I could be present to be at 25 and me at death uses the term now "relative" to two different moments in time, not to moments in my perception of time.
Perhaps the readings have awoken something after all. Reflection. Contemplation. Next Lent should be more interesting still. It will build upon this one. Perhaps some day I'll come to understand it better.
The man became a lawyer and promoted religious and moral instruction for sailors. He also fought for sailors' rights. His two years before the mast seem to have been more of a relationship with Christ then standing quietly in a room day in and day out conjuring up mental images and asking God to do things just to see how 'cool' God is. Tempting God comes in many flavors, namely one is to ask for something to be done, or ignore the physical world, instead - "waiting on God." Have you not been baptized? Were you not given a community? Can you not see your brethren are the Body of Christ, the character of your soul - the effects of the gifts of the Spirit? You wait for magic, not God. But now I am harsh, for I too am learning this. There is an earnest desire to see from God, but the hatred of the intellect makes it hard for anyone to seek God other than by tempting you Lord to do ridiculous things, to ask for movement but be blind to your actions.
Memory played the flute but you did not dance for her. I was told only loving Christ mattered, it's about a relationship, to pray often, that my behavior matters, yet...well. Spirit and Flesh, Mind and Matter, Black and White Yin & Yang. "Spiritual things matter, not the body. By the way we frown on certain bodily actions and require other bodily actions." Interesting example on how faith without intellect, faith alone, contradicts the gospel, contradicts the scriptures, unaware of its dualistic, docetic assumptions. And then they affirm the assumption using that lens to read Scripture, and trust nothing but Scripture and experience. But their experience is also seen through the same lens. We sometimes only affirm what we already believe, and cease to be challenged in any direction other than "deeper into what I already know." Heh, by know the meaning is usually 'feel, experience, read," all which collapse into the assumptions.
And so many other absurdities pile up.
I am at a pool with two friends. We are playing a video game together. We are pushing bread together to make sandwiches. There is exchange of future, doubt, and reflection on where we are. I am experiencing a relationship with Christ. The rest was 'baptized magic.' But it does not really matter here. I can nod at the 'magic' comments and love my people, for collectively, they are the Body. And there is no division between body and spirit.
So have the three years been.
