Sunday, November 12, 2006

Worthy of Meditation


A rather fantastic image of the 20th century's Dorothy Day (Thank you Wood's Lot).

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria,
A blessing in the midst of the earth,
Whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying,
"Blessed be Egypt my people,
And Assyria the work of my hands,
And Israel my heritage."
Isaiah 19.24-25

Our Dorothy Day is snoring in a nearby room.
Peter Berrigan watched a squirrel munching on an old jack-o-lanterned pumpkin recently when he started laughing and drooling (Peter, not the squirrel).
Sam's Boston accent (it seems) is not diminishing.
Sarah sang songs for some people at a goofy little kickbutt gathering last night in a not-up-to codes corner of a church building. I feel like I'm beginning to understand what songs are for.
Graham Ward says: "We dont grasp the truth without being grasped by what is true."
Northrop Frye says poetry is "an authority which emancipates instead of subordinating the person who accepts it."
Thanks for paying heed. I'm excited over this (my first successfully transmitted internet image).
We are a beginning.
jdd

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

howdy.

i am wondering about this:

'Graham Ward says: "We dont grasp the truth without being grasped by what is true."'

and how that relate to 'the truth shall set you free'. because each statement seems to hold meaning (/truth?!) and yet the first one seems terrifying... and maybe the second one too...

perhaps freedom is as frightening a thing as truth. and perhaps both are indivisable from humanity, if you are human.

ok, i should continue this train of thought internally i think!...

but thanks for the starter.

The Haberdasher said...

I just read a devotion by Blaise Pascal, whose devotional works may be even better than his contributions to science. He was saying something along those same lines. How we do not even know who we are, what we are for, where we are, let alone deeper questions like how to love. Without God there to give us identity. To inform us on what love is for and how to love. He goes on to talk about the dualistic nature of man. It hit me then that there are things that I wanted that I did not even know how to describe or understand, and that my second nature constantly wars with. The abundance of God is goodness (in superlative all encompassing form) and the absence of Him is the absence of reality or truth.

Anonymous said...

i am sort of in the middle of a belief that the only things we 'know' about god, however, are what can be revealed in the outworking of humanity. i think i have tended to assume in the past that all that can be known of humanity has been laid bare already. but now i'm not so sure. having surprised myself by giving birth i am now thinking that even we lowly non-gandhis have the potential to be more than we often do be. (back to that eagleton quote, maybe). so, for me at the minute, it is not reductive to say that the image of god is only apparent in the image of humanity. in fact i am wondering if the image of god _is_ the image of humanity. i think jesus said something about this sort of thing...

Anonymous said...

Worthy indeed. Thank you brother.

jdaviddark said...

thanks for talking, my friendlies.
some recent scribblings:
God not as the answer to all questions but that which disturbs all our answers
HAVE THIS MIND AMONG YOU....that bit in phillipians 2 about living/thinking emptyingly (kenosis?)
Jean-Yves Lacoste seems to say that to accept living in the image of God is to accept living kenotically (“a person most precisely describes himself or herself when he or she accepts an existence in the image of a God who has taken humiliation upon himself – when a kenotic existence is accepted...God can be the all-nearest (and there is no closer proximity that that to which Christology bears witness) even when e is absent to our senses.”
Ward: “What is the subject of Christian theology? Well it is only about God in so far as it is about God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth. For theological discourse can only inform us about what is human, about ourselves, our social and political priorities in relation to the incarnation of Christ. Theological discourse can never make any truth claims about the Godhead in and of itself. The godhead lies outside the margins of human representation. It instigates the crisis of our representations; our language has to experience its passion, its descent into the silent hiatus. In the words of von Balthazar (so reminiscent of Barth’s): 'God “judges” all human thoughts that strive upwards of themselves to attain the utmost and requires of them something that they can accomplish only in self-denial’"
Maybe this is more than anyone wanted.

Anonymous said...

hast thou been reading of the good book of rollins? and if not, i do recommend...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Not-Speak-Peter-Rollins/dp/0281057982/sr=8-1/qid=1164029485/ref=pd_ka_1/026-2660098-1343620?ie=UTF8&s=books

i wish i was a better link-er. posting urls never seems to do good.. but you know where to look N E how.

Anonymous said...

'God “judges” all human thoughts that strive upwards of themselves to attain the utmost and requires of them something that they can accomplish only in self-denial’

yeh. that's pretty good too. i gotta say dave these occassional pieces of gold do much to lighten the load. thank you.

jdaviddark said...

i ain't read the book o' rollins just yet, bui 'spect it's just a matter of time.
so glad you're liking them notes. i read, i write down, & i cut and paste. very simply done and worth your word of affirmation.

thankee,
jdd