God of the Squared Circle

boxing gloves in ringApparently, I have no quality thoughts of my own today.  So allow me to keep posting great things from other minds.

A fellow named Conrad Gempf says this:

“The God of the Jews and Christians is unlike any other god.  Dispute with Jupiter and you’ll have one of those yellow-painted wooden lightning bolts shoved down your throat.  Talking back to Allah is likely to get you into even more trouble than talking back to my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Davidovitch.  Try arguing with Buddha and he’ll laugh at you derisively for treating any conversation as it it referred to something real.

But when you start arguing with Yahweh, he smiles, rolls up his anthropocentric sleeves, and starts to look interested.  The strangest thing is that he likes losing the arguments even more than he likes winning them.  Jacob, the trickster, is beloved of God.  And Abraham didn’t just get away with asking, ‘What about if there are only twenty righteous men in the city?’

The God of the Jews and Christians is the only God that allows his followers to hear him say, ‘Oh, all right, you win.”

That imagery makes me think that life isn’t meant to be lived in the bleachers.

The ring is calling.

New Blogger

My friend Greg’s started a blog.  Though he’s a tad slow to the game, welcome all the same.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Greg.

Paralysis

That’s a visual kind of word.

And for all the hopeful stories we hear of people overcoming injuries and prevailing through suffering, it’s also a word that rhymes with “limitation”.

When a fearfully and wonderfully made body is broken in this way, it’s tough to watch because of how great that fall is: Can-do-anything-at-all to can’t-do-much-at-all.

That’s why this phrase jumped out of a book at me on the weekend:

“a paralysis of faith and imagination”

Forget wondering about the context.  Just roll it around with me.

Faith is one of those do-anything kind of words.  It can move mountains, for crying out loud!  And imagination… the sky is the limit.  That’s what makes imagination… imagination!  If it can be conceived, it can be achieved.  Translation: Imagination is the first step in every “impossible” achievement.  That’s a powerful thing!

So what a tragedy it would be to witness “a paralysis of faith and imagination”.

What a loss it would be to trade those treasures for lesser items like ritual or rule, like system or standard, like habit or ho-hum.  That would be… a paralysis.

So let me nudge you today.

  • Stretch out.
  • Risk something.
  • Give with no hope of return.
  • Be quiet.
  • Turn off the switch on whatever box is doing your imagining for you.
  • Think.
  • Pray.
  • Wonder.
  • Live.

Called to be Prophets

prophetThere’s a line from a church song that’s always stuck in my mind.  It goes:

“We are called to be prophets to this nation, to speak the word of God in every situation.”

Part of me loves that thought.  Another part of me fears that some religious folks will take that call to speak as an invitation to speak unlovingly and irrelevantly to the world around them.  (If you didn’t know already, some people view church people’s talking in that way.)

So that prophet thing is about more of us than old bearded men whose names end with -iah.  In fact, it might be something that you and I should pay attention to.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts us on to something of this sort when he says THIS about prophets:

“To us a single act of injustice–cheating in business, exploitation of the poor–is slight; to the prophets, a disaster.  To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.”

The prophetic part of seeing the immense power of goodness and the deep danger of evil… that’s a “prophet thing” for each of us to pick up.

Story of Stuff

Story of Stuff bannerThis is old news to some of you; perhaps new to others.  If you haven’t yet viewed this little 20-minute video, then you’re due.  If you’ve got friends, kids, or other people in your life, have them watch it with you.  I’d venture that some sort of quality conversation will arise from something that’s said.

It’s right HERE.  Now go learn some stuff about stuff.

(Thanks to Greg for unintentionally reminding me that I meant to post this weeks ago and forgot.)