Naming Animals

"We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:54:05 +0800

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks, as the priest passed by the man who had fallen among thieves, perhaps—reading the Bible. When we do that we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised athwart our path to show us that, not our way, but God’s way must be done.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pp.76f. Bonhoeffer adds that we must not disdain “God’s crooked yet straight path”. (via johnthelutheran)

"It is in ordinary life that our stories unfold, tales of conceiving, bearing, and giving birth, of..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:33:09 +0800

“It is in ordinary life that our stories unfold, tales of conceiving, bearing, and giving birth, of trial and death and rising to new life out of the ashes of old. Stories of annunciation, incarnation, resurrection, and the spirit, the giver of life, who has spoken through the prophets and enliven our faith.”

- Kathleen Norris - The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work.

"If a friend has been really sick, and they have taken a long time off work and have been in the..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:00:31 +0800

“If a friend has been really sick, and they have taken a long time off work and have been in the hospital. You go to visit them and say “Poor old so and so, he’s just a shadow of his former self.”

The good news of the resurrection hope is that you are merely a shadow of your future self. There is a you that is more you than you can even begin to imagine. God made you to reflect, in some unique way a particular facet of his glory and his love.”

- N.T. Wright (via achingforcomposure)

"Paul saw that underneath all the dismaying problems of the Corinthians lay one massive theological..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:00:46 +0800

“

Paul saw that underneath all the dismaying problems of the Corinthians lay one massive theological fallacy: they denied the resurrection of the dead. And by doing that, they denied the importance of the world that God created. They denied—whether they meant to or not—that these flawed bodies of ours are loved by God and will be redeemed. And therefore—whether they meant to or not—they denied that what we do with these bodies is of ultimate significance in God’s eyes. So they lapsed into confusion, both moral and theological.

These are sobering observations for a Christian church that all too often denies the resurrection in one way or another… [W]e find forms of otherworldly pietism that dream warmly of “going to heaven” but ignore the resurrection of the body—and thereby ignore the challenge of the gospel to the world we inhabit: such pietism falls unwittingly into the heresy that Justin Martyr decried as a “godless, impious” betrayal of the faith. It would not be difficult to document the various moral failings that follow from each of these errors.

In such a situation, Paul’s treatment of the resurrection of the dead presents the church with a compelling word that needs to be heard again and again. It is no accident that his teachings on the cross (1:18-2:16) and resurrection (15:1-58) stand like bookends—or sentinels—at beginning and end of the body of his letter to the Corinthians. These are the fundamental themes of the gospel story. All our theology and practice must find its place within the world framed by these truths.

”

- Richard Hays Resurrection in 1 Corinthians | Faith Improvised (via mshedden)

"Yet the noble despair of the poets Is nothing of the sort; it is silly To refuse the tasks of..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:12:42 +0800

“Yet the noble despair of the poets
Is nothing of the sort; it is silly
To refuse the tasks of time
And, overlooking our lives,
Cry—”Miserable wicked me,
How interesting I am.”
We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”

- W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety

(via coyotesnuggly)

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:35:34 +0800

allthingseurope: Reims Cathedral, France (by Wolfgang Staudt)

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:47 +0800

allthingseurope:

Reims Cathedral, France (by Wolfgang Staudt)

"To the question “Who is God?” the New Testament has one new descriptively identifying answer:..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:01:49 +0800

“To the question “Who is God?” the New Testament has one new descriptively identifying answer: “Whoever raised Jesus from the dead.” Identification by the Resurrection neither replaces nor is simply added to identification by the Exodus; the new identifying description verifies its paradigmatic predecessor. For at the outcome of the Old Testament it is seen that Israel’s hope in her God cannot be sustained if it is not verified by victory also over death … Thus “the one who rescued Israel from Egypt” is confirmed as an identification of God in that it is continued “as he thereupon rescued the Israelite Jesus from the Dead.””

- Robert W. Jensen, Systematic Theology, 1:44. (via scottxstephens)

"The vital necessity for tradition consists in the fact, as the old aphorism goes, that mankind has..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:44 +0800

“The vital necessity for tradition consists in the fact, as the old aphorism goes, that mankind has greater need of being reminded than of being instructed. Human existence can come to grief not only because people neglect further learning, but also because people forget and lose something indispensable.”

- Josef Pieper, Tradition: Concept and Claim, 22 (via settledthingsstrange)

"For Lewis, the Christian faith offers us a means of seeing things properly - as they really are,..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:34:00 +0800

“For Lewis, the Christian faith offers us a means of seeing things properly - as they really are, despite their outward appearances. Christianity provides an intellectually capacious and imaginatively satisfying way of seeing things, and grasping their interconnectedness, even if we find it difficult to express this in words. Lewis’s affirmation of the reasonableness of the Christian faith rests on his own quite distinct way of seeing the rationality of the created order, and its ultimate grounding in God. Using a powerful visual image, Lewis invites us to see God as both the ground of the rationality of the world, and the one who enables us to grasp that rationality: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” Lewis invites us to see Christianity as offering us a standpoint from which we may survey things, and grasp their intrinsic coherence. We see how things connect together.”

- Alister McGrath on C. S. Lewis’s visual apologetics

pegobry: centuriespast: Crucifixion of Saint...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:00:52 +0800

pegobry:

centuriespast:

Crucifixion of Saint Peter
Sacramentary, in Latin
France, Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, ca. 1060

The Morgan Library

Wow. This is beautiful.

"I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:49:01 +0800

“I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.”

- C.S. Lewis

"When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:45:32 +0800

“When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him, and it is not dark close around him. But precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason, he cannot see the stars. For his lights obscure the stars, which the poor peasant, driving without lights, can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in their prosperity and good days they have, as it were, lanterns lighted, and close about them everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable — but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars.”

- Kierkegaard (via onancientpaths)

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:59:58 +0800

Got this in my head today. It could definitely be worse. Not...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:21 +0800

Got this in my head today. It could definitely be worse.

Not sure what the pics are about, but nothing wrong with a few more monks in your day, either.

thoughtsandsquats: I have no idea what this type of meme is...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:49:52 +0800

thoughtsandsquats:

I have no idea what this type of meme is about or how it started, but it’s one of the few that can make me laugh.

The Hauerboss preaching on Jesus’ question to Peter (and...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:46:00 +0800

The Hauerboss preaching on Jesus’ question to Peter (and us), “Do you love me?”

(ht Jason Goroncy)

canonizedandotherwise: Ascension from the York Psalter

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:58:59 +0800

canonizedandotherwise:

Ascension from the York Psalter

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:59:22 +0800

"Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:28:48 +0800

“

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when He called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called…

Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called—the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ.

”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer