Sunday, November 30, 2008

Bother - said Winnie ther Pooh -

I regret that I had to lose my blog list. I wondered about dividing it up: blogs I like, blogs that teach me, blogs that give me hope, blogs I don't like. But I couldn't decide. So I have gone to an old backup and will see what sorts of blogs I have or have not lost or gained in the last year or so. I currently have 74 subscriptions on Google reader - too many to manage. Most of them are in the second list. It changes all the time. So I am not sure that I will bother trying to be friendly by classifying the blogs I like and don't like at the moment.

I use the Behemoth for sharing - it seems to me like a useful thing and the shared items appear on this blog. But the gadgets on the other blog interfere with printing - I never print but some do. I wonder if anyone has developed a print button - looked for such a gadget but did not find one.

Here's a list from a year and a half ago

Here's the list from last month - who is in both; whom have I lost: whom have I gained? (see below the list)
FILE COMPARISON


LAST YEAR

THIS YEAR


-+ 1 A vow of conversation



2 Abnormal Interests



3 "Akram's Razor - Reflections on Islam, Muslims & America"



4 an agnostic lectionary
1 Ancient Hebrew Poetry = 5 Ancient Hebrew Poetry


-+ 6 Aristotle's Feminist Subject



7 Awilum.com



8 Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective



9 beauty of the bible
2 Better Bibles Blog = 10 Better Bibles Blog
3 Beyond Words
11 Beyond Words
4 biblicalia
12 biblicalia
5 Chrisendom +-




13 Bob's Log



14 Caf‚ Apocalypsis



15 Codex Sinaiticus English
6 Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspot = 16 Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspot
7 Crossings +-




17 DailyHebrew.com
8 Diagramming Software





18 Dr. Platypus
9 Euangelion





19 drulogion



20 Earliest Christian History
10 From the Land of Uz





21 Emerging From Babel
11 "Gospels, Acts, and Hermeneutics"





22 Exploring Our Matrix
12 Greg Carey





23 Faith and Theology
13 Higgaion = 24 Higgaion
14 Hypotyposeis
25 Hypotyposeis
15 Imaginary Grace
26 Imaginary Grace


-+ 27 Irshad Manji blog and official website
16 Iyov = 28 Iyov


-+ 29 "Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism"
17 James McGrath





30 kai euthus



31 Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr.
18 Lingamish = 32 Lingamish
19 Metacatholic
33 Metacatholic


<> 34 Narrative and Ontology
20 "NT Gateway Web Log, Mark Goodacre"
35 NT Gateway Weblog: Mark Goodacre's Academic New Testament Blog
21 NTCS


22 Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Blog


23 PaleoJudaica.com = 36 PaleoJudaica.com
24 Phil Sumpter +-

25 Philip A. Harland: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean ... = 37 Philip A. Harland: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean ...
26 Reading scripture in a post-thingy world <> 38 Quadrilateral Thoughts
27 ricoblog - Biblical Studies Carnival III


28 Sansblogue
39 SansBlogue
29 Sufficiency - the Blog
40 Scripture & Theology



41 Sean the Baptist



42 Sefer Ha-Bloggadah



43 Singing In The Reign



44 St Barnabas Bible Study



45 St Barnabas Victoria - The Sunday School Blog
30 SYNEIDON Feed
46 Sufficiency



47 Suzanne's Bookshelf



48 Synoptic at Yahoo! Groups
31 Targuman = 49 Targuman


<> 50 Teaching OT in faraway places
32 The Busybody
51 The Bible Behemoth



52 The Fire and the Rose
33 The Forbidden Gospels Blog = 53 The Forbidden Gospels Blog
34 The Jesus Dynasty Blog <> 54 The Immanent Frame



55 the stuff of earth: biblical studies carnival xi



56 Theological German/Theologisches Deutsch
35 the stuff of earth
57 Thoughts on Antiquity
36 Threads from Henry's Web = 58 Threads from Henry's Web
37 tolle lege
59 tolle lege
38 Velveteen Rabbi: Zen psalms
60 Velveteen Rabbi: Zen psalms


<> 61 ГЛАС СТЕФАНА



62 גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁב
39 Withering Fig
63 תהלים


These are on my reader but incomplete in the above comparison
a time to tear down | A Time to Build Up
Biblia Hebraica
Chrisendom
Christ the Truth (my only follower!)
crosstalk2 : XTalk: Historical Jesus & Christian Origins
Euangelion
Experimental Theology
Lambeth bishops
NT Discourse
Opening the Scriptures: OT in the NT
The Gothic Theologian

There are some blogs I have read that are not now on any of these lists.

I will be away for the next two weeks in England and France. It is not too likely that I will post from December 2 till mid December - and I will have too many things to read on my return so will probably mark all as read.

I do enjoy the interaction and will often mention posts in my writing. I do wish good for you all, friend and enemy alike.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Intervals

For the music lover - don't miss this (parental warning).

I am losing traction here for the volume of posts on Bob's log - 65 so far this month as I morph translations into readable English and explore the structure of the psalms...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Random juxtapositions

I have or have not refined my list of blogs I read. Sometimes I wonder if I am just wasting my time. Not with respect to writing because I am learning as I write - and so it should be. There's just the odd chance that I might even make a booklet out of some things - like the Sunday School sequence of elementary Hebrew lessons. Books are a lot of work, however, and they are always error-prone, like software.

As I think on these things, I wonder at why some people write - maybe for fame, or for shock value, or whatever. Many whom I read write out of the search for learning and the struggle against abuse of power. At least that is how it appears to me and I learn from them too. I cannot always know why - but I can still wonder at some of the things I read - and then I think - I can do without this interruption.

One verse I came across recently tells me what interruptions God does without. Curious - you can consider this meandering as a comment on that verse from Exodus 20:25-26.

וְאִם-מִזְבַּח אֲבָנִים תַּעֲשֶׂה-לִּי, לֹא-תִבְנֶה אֶתְהֶן גָּזִית: כִּי חַרְבְּךָ הֵנַפְתָּ עָלֶיהָ, וַתְּחַלְלֶהָ. And if an altar of stones you make for me, you will not construct them as cut; for as you swing your sword on it you pollute it.
וְלֹא-תַעֲלֶה בְמַעֲלֹת, עַל-מִזְבְּחִי: אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תִגָּלֶה עֶרְוָתְךָ, עָלָיו. and you will not go up by steps to my altar, so as not to expose your nakedness on it.

It reminds me that I am open and naked before the one with whom I have to do - so to take some care as to what I write and how I write it. But I think that one reads me to learn about me and occasionally I get a reminder not to waste his time. This is the one who was naked on the altar of sacrifice for me so that I might find myself clothed before him by his covenant gifts. There is nothing I hide from him - how could I without lying even to myself? But, Beloved, I hide these things in parables and stories so that for you, there might be no offense. Some things are meant to be burned outside the camp.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Compline tonight

In and around my old intercessions I found these. I will use Hebrews 13:20 - 21 as the lesson.

A prayer based on Meister Eckhart and St Symeon the New Theologian
"What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us."
St. Symeon the New Theologian, another mystic 300 years before Meister Ekhart, wrote:
We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ.
He enters my foot,
& is infinitely me.
I move my hand,
& wonderfully my hand becomes Christ,
becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly whole,
seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot,
& at once he appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous?
Then open your heart to Him
And let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love him,
we wake up inside Christ's body
where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us utterly real,
and everything that is hurt,
everything that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged,
is in Him transformed and recognized as whole,
as lovely, and radiant in His light.
We awaken as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Today's quote of the day

From an Anglican Bishop at Mon Blog - a reading of René Girard

The apocalyptic literature found in the New Testament especially is not predictive of the final cataclysm, he says. Rather, it is “Christianity predicting its own failure”, he declares provocatively, “the only religion ever to do so.”

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Defining prayer

I just came across this sentence.

prayer is living out loud before an onlooking Lord
I have been too busy with psalms to post and to ill with a common cold to teach Sunday school - so no recent work. I thought when I began that Secundus in his second book would have to dig deeper and might be eternally delayed in his pursuit of a million words. Too many books around anyway.

There's something intimidating about the small size of the Gospels and the immense impact they have had. We will return to them in due course. But first we must continue to consider the base on which their meaning and purpose rests.

I have not changed my understanding of mercy - even when my health is stretched. There is no better.
Thy loving-kindness is better than life itself. My lips shall praise thee.
Such is the conclusion of the psalmist under the most difficult situations. All of us have them - and must face them with humility - an uncommon and elusive virtue - not to be pursued as if it were controllable but hopefully to be found as a beneficial infection from above. There, my love, I have put your common cold to uncommon usage.