Monthly Archives: December 2005

Silence II

How we can make art out of something mundane – art not just for art’s sake (though this is meaningful also) but for the sake of finding the creator through doing activties of participatory worship, sacrmental living, etc. Thus we have the “church of art” below.The church has for a long time lacked creativity, I must say that Quakers have even further to go before they catch up with the already-far-behind Protestants. To attack one’s own spiritual life because it doesn’t fit into certain molds of piety is not the way to go about finding in roads to God.Rather we need to be schooled again in creativity – we need to find God in the novels, the movies, indie and folk music (all other types are must be void), the riding to and fro, the listening, and the silence.There is a balance of both.

Silence Would Be Better

Even when I ride the train home, or to work, a perfect time to be silent I am often anxious to break out the newest book I am reading (East of Eden currently) or pop in the ol’ earbuds and listen to some tunes.When I am home, silence is most fleeting.It is so easy to be distracted by everything, and this is why the spiritual life – or life flowing from the Spirit – is so difficult to grasp…. But don’t let me leave this store with nothing.”And this is my biggest fear with silence, that it will all come up empty.I wonder how busy people ever make time to just sit and listen to the Spirit of Christ.

Why Blog?

Not that its not acceptable to blog, but just that for some peopel there seems to be”little use.”I’ve found that blogging for me takes on more than just journaling, in fact I try to do very little of that, at least in the sense of the old “dear diary” kind of journaling…. Not only do I have to deal with every word I put onto the blog editor as a real part of my own thinking, but I also have to be willing to allow those thoughts to be formed, challenged, and/or encouraged by those who have for one reason or another decided to be a part of my online community.

Who Goes There? or Knowing the Betrayer…

I can’t imagine what brings people to come to the point where they strip the innocence of powerless individuals.We must tread carefully on such subjects, for those who are victims forever struggle to regain a self-identity apart from the violating act – and many of those who are victims lay outside our own empathetically solidarity.But we must move away from using dehumanizing terms for one another – terms that tie us to devilish deeds, terrorists, pedophiles, kidnappers, murders, etc. It is when we use these terms that we distinguish us from the other and once we have made those who we fear “the other” than we can dismiss them as human – they become non-redeemable, persons barely human and to be feared.Fear – something that the world is full of, is ultimately existence apart from trust…. And this is it, there is no hard fast solution to these problems, no scan-tron sheet, or standardized test that will fix the world’s problems – if we are to follow Christ we are going to have to get our hands dirty.-a final note- we can only hope to help heal the victim or/and the victimizer if we are first willing to hear the truth from these people – that is we must be willing to hear their own pains and struggles, and then we must be willing to be committed to their healing.