Sufficiency

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Saga in 50 words

I have been tagged to put a life's saga into 50 words. I suppose it must be mine. The mused examples given here are intriguing.

My example was 52 words as written. I dropped 2 repeats. (The Hebrew is commentary and doesn't count.) I wrote it on the plane from Victoria to London. I type it at my daughter's just prior to a carol service at Selwyn this evening.

I knew you. יְדַעְתִּיךָ
Who dares to claim?
Depart from me
I never knew you.
Is there gospel?
Yes - that's why I continue.
It is not by my many claims or my firm belief בְּכָל־לִבִּי
but by your knowledge of me.
I have no other reason to be
nor reason for speaking.

And now - whom will I tag? Only those who are moved to be so tagged - what have you written recently that encapsulates your thought in 50 words or less in that slightly alkaline 1 and 1/2 pound jellyware computer you have carried between your shoulder blades all your life?

I would almost tag the anonymous but personal Iyov and the equally anonymous but not so well contextualized Wrong. Of the named, Kathy the writer from whom we have not heard for so long, or scott of the little letters, or Duane whose Friday loanwords enrich us each week. But tagging is hard for a lone fellow on the outskirts of the spiral town, (and I would not presume to know these as readers or even the many who might read that I don't know or especially the many that I have not read) so I will let you, any reader, consider yourself tagged.

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.

Sufficiency

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