Creatively Advancing into Novelty
If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously…
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…
Wheeling Motel by Franz Wright The vast waters flow past its back yard. You can purchase a six-pack in bars! Tammy Wynette’s on the marquee a block down. It’s twenty-five years ago: you went to death, I to life, and which was luckier God only knows. There’s this line in an unpublished poem of…
The classification of the European era between the decline of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance as the “Dark Ages” is now rejected by most modern historians.During the early Middle Ages, significant literary and educational advances (especially during the period known as the Carolingian Renaissance) were made, including the foundations of the modern university, as…
As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes…
“If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” –Paul, Phillipians 3:4b-6…
…To the Christian love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is an unchristan conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian love is the works of love. Christ’s love was…
What is the real me? It is certainly more than the matter of my body, because that it changing all the time. The atoms are always changing – but in some sense it is the pattern of how the atoms are formed. That, I think, is what the soul is (agreeing with Thomas Aquinas). It…
Jesus is the blueprint, the plan, the pattern revealed in one body and moment of history to reveal the meaning of all of history and each of our lives. The cross is the banner of what we do to one another and to God. The resurrection is the banner of what God does to us…
Often, the tendency is to call something “boring” and “slow” when we don’t understand it or lack the energy to make a stab at comprehension. But I think sometimes there are other forces at work as well: cynicism and pride. Cynicism makes us skeptical that there is meaning, truth, beauty and goodness out there worth…