“Why is God landing in this enemy occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying: He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely….God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on the stage the play is over.”

-----C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”

"All your dissatisfaction with the Church seems to me to come from an incomplete understanding of sin. What you seem actually to demand is that the Church put the kingdom of heaven on earth right here now, that the Holy Ghost be translated at once into all flesh. The Holy Spirit rarely shows Himself on the surface of anything. You are asking that man return at once to the state God created him in, you are leaving out the terrible radical human pride that causes death. Christ was crucified on earth and the Church crucified in time. . . The Church is founded on Peter who denied Christ three times and who couldn't walk on the water by himself. You are expecting his successors to walk on the water. All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Priests resist it as well as others. To have the Church be what you want it to be would require the continuous miraculous meddling of God in human affairs."

-----Flannery O'Connor, from a letter to a fan who was complaining about the church

"If we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy...We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so."

-----C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory"

Notes on Isaiah 58 and the book of Micah from the Spiritual Formation Bible:

Isaiah 58:5-7
the fast that I choose...Here the prophetic tradition advocates an understanding of religion that is focused primarily on neighbor love. A fast is a religious discipline, but the kind of "fast"--religious discipline--God would like to see has to do with the breaking of oppression and with concern for the suffering of those who lack food, clothing, and shelter. Indeed, the last phrase of verse 7, in Hebrew, goes beyond calling the poor and the homeless "your own kin," as in English, to calling them "your own flesh." That is, the ones addressed by the poetry must stand in profound solidarity with the needy. This imagined scenario of true religion (echoed in James 1:27) is contrasted by the preceding verses (vv 1-4), in which a phony kind of religion is punctilious about liturgical and pious practices, but at the same time is economically exploitive of workers who work for low pay and are gouged by high interest charges. Thus the negative critique of verses 1-4 and the positive alternative of verses 5-7 articulate a profound either/or that is at the heart of prophetic understandings of the covenantal faith. It is clear that this either/or is still on the table for men and women of faith in the Christian tradition, for there is a great temptation to make religion a nice, sweet thing that is detached from economic reality. The sentiment of this poem would find that scandalous and unacceptable.

Isaiah 58:9
the Lord will answer. ...The consequence of true religion as it is detailed in verses 5-7 is the immediate attentiveness and presence of God. The implication of verses 5-9, taken all together, is that neighbor love is a precondition of the attentiveness of God, who will hear prayers and intervene according to the practice of the faithful.


Micah "Fundamentals of a Redeemed Life"
Against the backdrop of endemic evil, Micah outlines the essentials of a righteous life. The Lord is a God of Mercy (7:18), compassion (7:19), and faithfulness (7:20). On his side, God forgives sins (7:18-19); redeems from spiritual bondage (4:10; 6:4); bestows righteousness, or right standing with Himself (7:9); and blesses with peace (5:5). On the human side, one must exercise continual faith (7:7-9), remember God's mighty deeds (6:5), devote oneself to prayer (7:7), and bless others as the dew graces the grass (5:7). Perfecting holiness and godliness is the stuff of spiritual formation.

"For their part, God's people must uphold the rights of the poor and downtrodden in society, embody good-heartedness and mercy in relations to others, and live in close communion with God. Christian spiritual formation ought not and, indeed, cannot be divorced from compassionate social engagement."

Bono gave a prophetic speech at the annual prayer breakfast in Washington yesterday. It's nice to hear someone speaking truth to power.

Find the full text here: Bono's Speech

"All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible."

-----Norman Maclean, from "A River Runs Through It"

[How do you stay calm about events in Washington?] "I don't. I go out and kick trees. I don't just hug them, I kick them."

-----Former Senator Gary Hart when asked about the current administration in the NYT Magazine

The best resolution I've read so far:

-Live my own life. For every child Angelina Jolie adopts, I'll donate a hundred dollars to the Red Cross. For every celebrity marriage that I read is dissolved or annulled, I'll take my wife out to dinner. For every peek I take at People or Us Weekly, I’ll reread Ecclesiastes.

-----This one came from Relevant Magazine

"The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."

-----Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"

"Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!? If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: 'Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!' No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support."

-----Leo Tolstoy, from a personal letter.

"I liked Balzac a lot, read 'luck and leather', and 'le cousin pons'. Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That's the secret of life. You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It's funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk's robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, 'What does this mean?' He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious."

-----Bob Dylan, from "Chronicles Vol. 1"

Chesterton loved paradoxes. He could turn phrases and ideas like normal people roll ice around on their tongues. Part poet, part jester, he was like a five year old wielding a broad sword. The problem with paradoxes is that they never encompass the truth, they only get us to look at it in different ways. At best they're tools for dismantling functional fixedness, at worst they're smokescreens for bad arguments. Chesterton knew this, but he often got carried away. It's a shame too, because he makes some damn fine arguments and exposes a lot of nonsense considered foundational to modern thought by using paradoxes. But alas style is not content and artifice is not architecture. To put it punctiliously. .. . paradoxically it was his paradoxes that cost him the respect that his ideas deserved (wink). Still, I think he stands as one of the great thinkers of the modern age and points a way through for Christians to think about the present intellectual climate we inhabit.

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."

-----G.K. Chesterton

"All of those things for which we have no words are lost. The mind--the culture-- has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives."

-----Annie Dillard, "Teaching a Stone to Talk"

"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery."

-----C.S. Lewis, "The Abolition of Man"

Discuss. . . .

What's really concerning to me about this country right now is our collective ability to have the wool pulled over our eyes due to our intellectual apathy and our willingness to let one or two key issues color every other issue. Particularly, I'm upset about the war in Iraq and the judicial nomination process. But what's most disconcerting is how moderate Republican and Democrat leaders alike keep getting played by this neo-conservative administration.

Let's not talk about all the lies and mistakes besmearing our name and reputation in Iraq, let's talk about leadership and patriotism. Let's not talk about judges with frighteningly narrow views of the constitution--judges who want to erradicate equality programs--rather let's talk about abortion. Both times the bait and switch. Why? Because hardly anyone is taking the time to do the hard work of trying to see through the smoke, or more ominously, no one gives shit because they're so tired of being lied to over and over again by nearly everyone in power.

I personally prefer to think of it more along the lines that Huxley articulated when he prophesied that we'll become "too busy with the orgy-porgy and the bumblepuppy" to care. It's what entertains us that kills us, and those in power know it all too well. Just appeal to a few hot button sentiments and no one will ever know the wiser. The average citizen can't be bothered with the truth when his faith only boils down to pro-life, or worse yet when the most pressing thing she has to know is what's gonna happen next on "Lost." Lost indeed!

It's frightening because the only way this country is going to change is if the people collectively stand up and call the leaders to task, hold them accountable, and we can't do that when most of us are sucking our thumbs in front of the TV instead of kneeling in the house of the Lord.

"When I look at the cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my shit and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that's the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.....But there are two routes out of town. There always are. There's transcendence and there's the cover version, or the dull copy: junk food transcendence of drugs, the 'easy to digest but finally that's gonna give you heart disease' religion. But I tend to believe that people who just want a cheap way out of their life can find zealotry in lots of places. The true life of a believer is one of a longer, more hazardous or uphill pilgrimage, and where you uncover slowly the sort of illumination for your next step. Religious people, generally, they freak me out. Honestly, I start twitching when I'm around them. But sometimes, maybe weirdos are the only people who really know they need God."

-----Bono, from "Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas"

I saw George Clooney's new film Good Night, and Good Luck today. Fantastic film. It's a wonderful retelling of Edward R. Murrow's showdown with Senator McCarthy in the 50's. The parallels to our present political/media situation are timely, but more significantly, the film showcases some of Murrow's prescience regarding the variously banal uses of televised media. It's like a combination of "All The President's Men" crossed with "The Insider". . . .and perhaps a little "Amusing Ourselves To Death" thrown in for good measure. Get off your computer and go see it!

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

-----Albert Einstein

"It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the creature He (God) wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those that please Him best....He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be decieved, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and ask why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

-----C.S. Lewis, from "The Screwtape Letters", lifted heavily from George MacDonald's "Unspoken Sermons".

"A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle."

-----U2, "Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World"