storytime

wonderfulexchange7 Comments

So, do we suppose I am enjoying my bedtime reading, or just enjoying the thought of enjoying it?  Sadly, it’s acted more like espresso than chamomile.

The idol does not indicate, any more than the icon, a particular being or even class of beings.  Icon and Idol indicate a manner of being for beings, or at least for some of them.  Indeed, a determination that would limit itself to opposing the ‘true God’ (icon) to the ‘false god’ (idol) in extending the polemic of the vetero-testamentary prophets, would not be suitable here.  For the Christian iconoclasts of the eighth century gave the name ‘idol’ to that which had been conceived and venerated as icon of the true God, and the Jews of the Old Covenant rejected all representation as idolatrous, even representation of the God of the Covenant.  (the ‘Golden Calf’, it has been argued, perhaps only personalized the God of the Covenant, and the very Temple of Jerusalem could have been deserted by the divine Shekinah only insofar as it foundered in idolatry.) …  In short, the icon and the idol are not at all determined as beings against other beings, since the same beings (statues, names, etc.) can pass from one rank to the other.  The icon and the idol determine two manners of being for beings, not two classes of beings.

Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being
transl. Thomas A. Carlson

You must admit, that bit about the Skekinah is pretty clever.

a multitude of saints

wonderfulexchangeLeave a comment

All week, an unfamiliar excitement has been stirring.  I’ve sensed it, but found no reason for it.  It’s too soon to be caught up in the glimmer of Advent.  There was excitement about the election, surely, but that’s not it either…  Pastorally, a bit of a tricky week, so no sense of excitement there.  A good week for friends:  phone calls all one evening, and a real-live-person on Wednesday.   But that’s not it either.

Then today, I figured it out.

It’s the chaffinch.birds1

Captains of fifty with their fifty, swooping in, feeding, fluttering, dancing before my window with all the speed of light glinting on water.  Their energy is contagious:  the local equivalent of the buzz of the city.  Much needed sources of joy.

Molly-cat is delighted too.

Advent blog

wonderfulexchange16 Comments

It’s time to decide if the SEC Advent blog Love Blooms Bright will return again this year.

I am looking for six volunteers who are willing to ‘take a day’ for the four weeks of Advent.  Your job is to ensure there is a post on your day.   That means you can write something, quote something, or offer an image; or, you can find someone to write for you that day.

We also welcome those who wish to contibute one or more posts, but who do not want the responsibilty of ‘a day a week’.

If you would like to help, please respond in the comments or email me.

If you enjoyed reading the blog and are hoping it returns, we’d be glad to hear that too.

Please pass word on to anyone who might be interested.  As you know, I haven’t been blogging much lately, and inevitably some readers have drifted away.

no excuse

wonderfulexchange4 Comments

So, for a day, the world let itself hope.

Some of the world that is.  All who have bought into the reassertion of the American Dream, or the symbolic power of a black president (though no one complains that in the States, one black parent and one white parent still means ‘black’), or the relief that perhaps the disastrous political regime of the past eight years is ending.

There has been a lot of thoughtful commentary, and I wish neither to summarize it nor to remark on it, save for one thing.  Yesterday, I found myself listening to a call in show on Five-Live:  ‘did America make the right choice’.  One man, in explaining his ‘yes’ said that as of today there were no more excuses:  no black child, no black teenager could ever again claim that they were stopped by the colour of their skin.

That is a good thing.

But if it is true, that means that right now,  there are a whole lot of people who might be both angry and afraid that their excuses are gone; people who for years have told themselves:  ‘I can’t; no one will let me’ and now they have to face that that might not be true.

Please understand:  the circumstances mean we are imagining a certain group of disaffected people who happen to be black.  But the reality is greater.  Lots of us find excuses for not trying, not hoping, not choosing our path in life.

Yesterday, we opened the door on hope.   Like the person who has just discovered a relationship with God, we let ourselves imagine new possibilities for the future: a vision of life not determined by the past.  It is a wonderful feeling, but hard to sustain.  Once the euphoria wears off we are left in a void.  On one side are the old-ways that we may want to let go of, but are familiar and instinctual.  On the other side, there’s a glimmer of something we can’t grasp and a path that turns quickly out of sight.

The way of hope is surrounded by a thousand sirens calling out reasons for our failure: a thousand excuses we can give ourselves as we feel the lure of old-habits that get us nowhere, but offer the comfort of familiarity.

Hope  keeps disturbing us with the question:  what will you choose today?