Sewn, rooted, flung
Systematically Vibrant
Colorfully collected
Filling and overflowing, consuming and reproducing
Violently unique
All freckled and folded
It grasps, moves full of hope
Urging forward, outward
Then gives forth itself
Begetting again
Life
Life knows its own preciousness.
To Ends and Deeps it reaches out
And the Earth bears forth its abundance.
Sings, soothes, feeds, kills and destroys, and yet again is reborn
Life flows on
Tuning itself to an unknown melody
Bound and boxed in by nothing, eternally creative
Its vibrant voice calls forth:
Echoing hard knowledge even from its darkest forms,
Murmuring truths to captive minds
Life speaks on
Carefully hold it
Guard it and know it,
Use it, create with it
Speak of it and name it,
Open it and see
The Heart of Me
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Since everyone else is commenting on Tebow...
From an article I read that comes from a secular perspective:
"The crux here, the issue driving this whole "Tebow Thing," is the matter of faith. It's the ongoing choice between embracing a warm feeling that makes no sense or a cold pragmatism that's probably true. And with Tebow, that illogical warm feeling keeps working out. It pays off. The upside to secular thinking is that — in theory — your skepticism will prove correct. Your rightness might be emotionally unsatisfying, but it confirms a stable understanding of the universe. Sports fans who love statistics fall into this camp. People who reject cognitive dissonance build this camp and find the firewood. But Tebow wrecks all that, because he makes blind faith a viable option. His faith in God, his followers' faith in him — it all defies modernity. This is why people care so much. He is making people wonder if they should try to believe things they don't actually believe."
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319858/the-people-hate-tim-tebow
Oddly, I think this could be said about what Christ has done for us. What we thought foolishness has now become wise and what was holy, other, different and unknowable has become one in empathy with us. I hate to trivialize Christ by comparing him to a modern popular figure, but I do think there is some value in recognizing parts of who he is through applicable, modern realities. When Christ tells us "take up your cross and follow Me," doing so would have seemed foolish to us before, but by becoming human and going before us, he has made us believe in that thing we actually could not believe in or act on before.
My favorite Christmas hymn has a verse that speaks to this:
Filled with mercy for the broken man
Yes he walked my road, and He felt my pain,
Joys and sorrows that I know so well;
Yet His righteous steps, give me hope again -
I will follow my Immanuel!
From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable
P.S.
I am one of those hard core stats people, but I think I know that like life, sports mean nothing unless they reach somewhere deeper than simply the logical. Life was never meant to be lived, expressed, and experienced with only an empty pragmatic mind, or God would never have been able to simply say to his disciples, "drop all your stuff and come follow me."
"The crux here, the issue driving this whole "Tebow Thing," is the matter of faith. It's the ongoing choice between embracing a warm feeling that makes no sense or a cold pragmatism that's probably true. And with Tebow, that illogical warm feeling keeps working out. It pays off. The upside to secular thinking is that — in theory — your skepticism will prove correct. Your rightness might be emotionally unsatisfying, but it confirms a stable understanding of the universe. Sports fans who love statistics fall into this camp. People who reject cognitive dissonance build this camp and find the firewood. But Tebow wrecks all that, because he makes blind faith a viable option. His faith in God, his followers' faith in him — it all defies modernity. This is why people care so much. He is making people wonder if they should try to believe things they don't actually believe."
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319858/the-people-hate-tim-tebow
Oddly, I think this could be said about what Christ has done for us. What we thought foolishness has now become wise and what was holy, other, different and unknowable has become one in empathy with us. I hate to trivialize Christ by comparing him to a modern popular figure, but I do think there is some value in recognizing parts of who he is through applicable, modern realities. When Christ tells us "take up your cross and follow Me," doing so would have seemed foolish to us before, but by becoming human and going before us, he has made us believe in that thing we actually could not believe in or act on before.
My favorite Christmas hymn has a verse that speaks to this:
Filled with mercy for the broken man
Yes he walked my road, and He felt my pain,
Joys and sorrows that I know so well;
Yet His righteous steps, give me hope again -
I will follow my Immanuel!
From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable
P.S.
I am one of those hard core stats people, but I think I know that like life, sports mean nothing unless they reach somewhere deeper than simply the logical. Life was never meant to be lived, expressed, and experienced with only an empty pragmatic mind, or God would never have been able to simply say to his disciples, "drop all your stuff and come follow me."
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