February 25, 2010
In this post 9/11 world we live in, documented identity has become a central piece in the fight against terrorism. At the same time, the increasingly complex web of electronic information sharing, be it personal or business, has raised the issue of identity theft to new heights. Documented identity is supposed to prove you are who you say you are via birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc. Documented identity was recently ratcheted up a notch with the requirement of a passport to enter Canada. While you must now have a physical document in your hand to enter Canada (assuring border authorities you are who you say you are), at the same time our identity is seeping out, bit by bit, into an expanding pool of electronic based information. I order seeds. The seed house asks for my credit card no. I give it to them. A piece has seeped into the pool. I choose the paperless route to pay the gas bill. My address is required, a phone number, banking account codes...more bits leaked into the pool. Apparently, there are hackers who, like fishermen, are skilled at pulling out a bit from this pool and this is called identity theft. Unlike documented identity, this notion of identity is really just about numbers.
Reducing personal identity to a document or number(s) is essentially a de-humanizing act. It is an example of the triumph of sight over word. "I can't trust who you SAY you are but I can trust what I SEE that tells me who you are." Another way of saying it is : seeing is believing. Biblically, to SEE God is to die. Images of God are strictly forbidden. We approach God and are approached by God through word(s). I don't know where all this leads on this mild late February afternoon except to say that the triumph of image (sight) over word in our culture must have repercussions beyond having to show a document to get into Canada...
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
February 11, 2010
Natural revelation and special revelation are two terms that in a theological context refer to God and in particular how he is revealed. I don't know very much about these terms. I have just come in to have a cup of tea after pruning the Braeburn apple tree I planted several years ago. If I said that God revealed himself to me while pruning the apple tree would that be natural or special revelation? What constitutes a revelation? Does it have to be a dramatic event that is recorded? (Moses and the burning bush; Paul's conversion experience, etc.) Or can it be a very small thing? (the miracle of swelling apple buds, two blue jays scolding and frolicking in the wet grass under the pear tree, etc.) Does revelation require an observer? "Day to day pours forth speech (dahbar, God's creative word)..." the psalmist asserts. I assume this is natural revelation but isn't it also very specific and what makes it less special than what happens with Moses or Paul? I guess what I'm getting at is the fact I am not very familiar or comfortable with these terms that show up in some of the reading I do. I would like to understand a little better why these terms are important. What is at stake in making the distinction between natural and special revelation? For that matter, why am I even thinking about it?!!
Aha! that last question is the one I will follow. My intuition tells me it has something to do with my exploration of what is meant by the phrase, The fear of the Lord.
Well, there is some corn stubble out there in the garden that needs to be cleaned off and a pear tree to be pruned and my cup of tea is empty. I guess I'll get back to revelations....
Natural revelation and special revelation are two terms that in a theological context refer to God and in particular how he is revealed. I don't know very much about these terms. I have just come in to have a cup of tea after pruning the Braeburn apple tree I planted several years ago. If I said that God revealed himself to me while pruning the apple tree would that be natural or special revelation? What constitutes a revelation? Does it have to be a dramatic event that is recorded? (Moses and the burning bush; Paul's conversion experience, etc.) Or can it be a very small thing? (the miracle of swelling apple buds, two blue jays scolding and frolicking in the wet grass under the pear tree, etc.) Does revelation require an observer? "Day to day pours forth speech (dahbar, God's creative word)..." the psalmist asserts. I assume this is natural revelation but isn't it also very specific and what makes it less special than what happens with Moses or Paul? I guess what I'm getting at is the fact I am not very familiar or comfortable with these terms that show up in some of the reading I do. I would like to understand a little better why these terms are important. What is at stake in making the distinction between natural and special revelation? For that matter, why am I even thinking about it?!!
Aha! that last question is the one I will follow. My intuition tells me it has something to do with my exploration of what is meant by the phrase, The fear of the Lord.
Well, there is some corn stubble out there in the garden that needs to be cleaned off and a pear tree to be pruned and my cup of tea is empty. I guess I'll get back to revelations....
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
February 10, 2010
Rain is forecast to roll in this afternoon, the heavenly waters bathing the awakening roots of spring.....and filling once again the potholes in my lane! They have become hazardous. Driving the lane feels like skiing a slalom course.
This morning I took on the persona of a chain gang member, shouldering shovel, pick, and rake, I began the the laborious task of 'road repairs'. It seems my lane has fallen outside the umbrella of stimulus dollars. No money in this work. Just pick and shovel and old chain gang tunes recalled from memory. It is work that will never end. The rains will come. New 'soft spots' will develop.
There are other things I do in life that are dull, repetitive, and sap my strength. It's been that way ever since I first entered the berry fields as a 6 year old. There is nothing romantic or uplifting about this toil. It is simply what I find myself doing at times. My inner boss comes on to the stage and says, "Come on, Jon, it's pick and shovel time. Get going!" There isn't even anyone to watch me perform!
I am not lamenting or complaining...just acknowledging and being aware of this part of the reality of my life.
Rain is forecast to roll in this afternoon, the heavenly waters bathing the awakening roots of spring.....and filling once again the potholes in my lane! They have become hazardous. Driving the lane feels like skiing a slalom course.
This morning I took on the persona of a chain gang member, shouldering shovel, pick, and rake, I began the the laborious task of 'road repairs'. It seems my lane has fallen outside the umbrella of stimulus dollars. No money in this work. Just pick and shovel and old chain gang tunes recalled from memory. It is work that will never end. The rains will come. New 'soft spots' will develop.
There are other things I do in life that are dull, repetitive, and sap my strength. It's been that way ever since I first entered the berry fields as a 6 year old. There is nothing romantic or uplifting about this toil. It is simply what I find myself doing at times. My inner boss comes on to the stage and says, "Come on, Jon, it's pick and shovel time. Get going!" There isn't even anyone to watch me perform!
I am not lamenting or complaining...just acknowledging and being aware of this part of the reality of my life.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
February 9, 2010
The sun has finally burned away the fog cloud blanket. I didn't know if it would do so today. I am loving this El Nino weather pattern. It has allowed me to jump start the commencement of the 2010 garden season by about three weeks.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2: 8-9; KJV)
The center of the garden is fraught with danger. It is at the center where the 'fateful' encounter between Eve and the Serpent plays out.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush in not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. (Exodus 3:2-4; KJV)
The flaming center of the bush is the source of God's voice....the center of holy ground. It is a place of consuming white hot heat. Moses dares not get too close to the center.
Having driven a steak in the center of the garden I steward, I now eye that place with greater reverence. I walk by it carefully. While it's true that the center stake is purely artificial, it invites me to reflect on the question: What is at the center? Is it sacred? Dangerous? It helps me understand the minds of the ancients a little better. They wanted to raise a pole at the center and dance around it. They wanted to erect their shrines and temples at the center. They felt the Holy was found at the center and considered it a place of danger...the dwelling place of the god(s).
These musings are helping me formulate and shape the direction of my next public presentation: The fear of the Lord.....
The sun has finally burned away the fog cloud blanket. I didn't know if it would do so today. I am loving this El Nino weather pattern. It has allowed me to jump start the commencement of the 2010 garden season by about three weeks.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2: 8-9; KJV)
The center of the garden is fraught with danger. It is at the center where the 'fateful' encounter between Eve and the Serpent plays out.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush in not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. (Exodus 3:2-4; KJV)
The flaming center of the bush is the source of God's voice....the center of holy ground. It is a place of consuming white hot heat. Moses dares not get too close to the center.
Having driven a steak in the center of the garden I steward, I now eye that place with greater reverence. I walk by it carefully. While it's true that the center stake is purely artificial, it invites me to reflect on the question: What is at the center? Is it sacred? Dangerous? It helps me understand the minds of the ancients a little better. They wanted to raise a pole at the center and dance around it. They wanted to erect their shrines and temples at the center. They felt the Holy was found at the center and considered it a place of danger...the dwelling place of the god(s).
These musings are helping me formulate and shape the direction of my next public presentation: The fear of the Lord.....
Friday, February 5, 2010
February 5, 2010
Ezekiel's vision of the Temple begins with chapter 40. It is quite an experience to read 40 and following. Why this obsession with architecture, layout, and specific details? It creates a confusing picture in my mind...gates here, chambers there, posts of a certain height, doors, courts, etc. What's going on?
Minimally, and perhaps most significantly, it is an ordering of sacred space, not unlike the discoveries of late 19th and 20th century cultural anthropologists who studied 'primitive' cultures. One of my favorites, the recently deceased Claude Levi-Strauss, studied the layout of a village and related it to the structure of the language spoken. He asserted that language and the ordering of space shared a common structure.
My interest is in finding the center...the center of the village, the center of the temple, the center of language. My hypothesis is that the center is the place of the most sacred. This is part of my preparation for the next 'lecture' I am working on. I am exploring the phrase: The fear of the Lord. My thoughts and reflections are beginning to organize themselves but it still feels like Ezekiel 40.
What I'm going to do today is find the center of the property I steward and drive a steak...raise and Ebenezer!! I wonder if I will learn anything from that experience?
I think I will....
Ezekiel's vision of the Temple begins with chapter 40. It is quite an experience to read 40 and following. Why this obsession with architecture, layout, and specific details? It creates a confusing picture in my mind...gates here, chambers there, posts of a certain height, doors, courts, etc. What's going on?
Minimally, and perhaps most significantly, it is an ordering of sacred space, not unlike the discoveries of late 19th and 20th century cultural anthropologists who studied 'primitive' cultures. One of my favorites, the recently deceased Claude Levi-Strauss, studied the layout of a village and related it to the structure of the language spoken. He asserted that language and the ordering of space shared a common structure.
My interest is in finding the center...the center of the village, the center of the temple, the center of language. My hypothesis is that the center is the place of the most sacred. This is part of my preparation for the next 'lecture' I am working on. I am exploring the phrase: The fear of the Lord. My thoughts and reflections are beginning to organize themselves but it still feels like Ezekiel 40.
What I'm going to do today is find the center of the property I steward and drive a steak...raise and Ebenezer!! I wonder if I will learn anything from that experience?
I think I will....
Thursday, February 4, 2010
February 4, 2010
I did a lot of hitch hiking in my early 20's. While I was living at Harvard, vacation times (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) were difficult for me. I didn't have money to fly home and all my friends were gone so I had to come up with cheap alternatives. I hitched down to D.C over one spring break to be a spectator at one of the huge anti-war demonstrations that were occuring. (early '70's).
I had an older brother living in Ontario, Canada at that time and one Thanksgiving break I decided to visit him. I had enough money to fly from Boston to Toronto. He lived in Exeter, a couple hundred miles to the west. I got into Toronto about midnight and took a bus downtown.
It was raining and cold. I got a map and figured out what road I needed to get on and stuck out my thumb. It must have been 2am when someone finally picked me up. In the course of the ride I found out that he had recently been released from a federal prison in upstate New York. We talked the whole way and he was kind enough to go out of his way to drop me off at my exact destination point.
When I look back on that experience I am so amazed that I felt no fear. Here I was, alone, late at night, riding in a car with a complete stranger--an ex con-- and all I felt was this wonderful sense of adventure. I guess it was my naivite.
What a fearful world we live in today...It causes me to stop and wonder what is going on? Am I still naive?
I did a lot of hitch hiking in my early 20's. While I was living at Harvard, vacation times (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) were difficult for me. I didn't have money to fly home and all my friends were gone so I had to come up with cheap alternatives. I hitched down to D.C over one spring break to be a spectator at one of the huge anti-war demonstrations that were occuring. (early '70's).
I had an older brother living in Ontario, Canada at that time and one Thanksgiving break I decided to visit him. I had enough money to fly from Boston to Toronto. He lived in Exeter, a couple hundred miles to the west. I got into Toronto about midnight and took a bus downtown.
It was raining and cold. I got a map and figured out what road I needed to get on and stuck out my thumb. It must have been 2am when someone finally picked me up. In the course of the ride I found out that he had recently been released from a federal prison in upstate New York. We talked the whole way and he was kind enough to go out of his way to drop me off at my exact destination point.
When I look back on that experience I am so amazed that I felt no fear. Here I was, alone, late at night, riding in a car with a complete stranger--an ex con-- and all I felt was this wonderful sense of adventure. I guess it was my naivite.
What a fearful world we live in today...It causes me to stop and wonder what is going on? Am I still naive?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
February 3, 2010
Computer issues have taken me away from the blogging routine I was getting into. Things are getting more back to normal, although some data recovery work from 'crashed' hardrive has yet to be completed.
My mother is recovering from a nasty case of eczema which was compounded by her tendency to scratch herself every time she was experiencing some anxiety. The first hour of the day is most difficult for her. She is much disoriented. Doesn't know what day it is and wants to know all that is going to happen. She will shuffle down to my study and scratch as I write out the events of the day on a whiteboard. The cortisone cream and the prednisone treatment the doctor prescribed seem to be working. The inflammation is clearing up. The anxiety remains. I do not know if there is a direct causal link between anxiety and eczema but it would make sense, with scrathcing being the 'transmitter'.
We scratch where it itches. Sometimes we scratch just to scratch, perhaps to create an itch so we have something to scratch! It feels good to scratch. I have an itch to sow some pea seeds today...to scratch the soil, the skin of Mother Earth.
Computer issues have taken me away from the blogging routine I was getting into. Things are getting more back to normal, although some data recovery work from 'crashed' hardrive has yet to be completed.
My mother is recovering from a nasty case of eczema which was compounded by her tendency to scratch herself every time she was experiencing some anxiety. The first hour of the day is most difficult for her. She is much disoriented. Doesn't know what day it is and wants to know all that is going to happen. She will shuffle down to my study and scratch as I write out the events of the day on a whiteboard. The cortisone cream and the prednisone treatment the doctor prescribed seem to be working. The inflammation is clearing up. The anxiety remains. I do not know if there is a direct causal link between anxiety and eczema but it would make sense, with scrathcing being the 'transmitter'.
We scratch where it itches. Sometimes we scratch just to scratch, perhaps to create an itch so we have something to scratch! It feels good to scratch. I have an itch to sow some pea seeds today...to scratch the soil, the skin of Mother Earth.
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