tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50070433222241856072024-03-14T05:13:02.521-07:00Theology & PeaceTheology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-29922901179810168322015-08-22T17:45:00.001-07:002015-08-22T19:46:02.354-07:00The Fulfillment of Solidarity, Part 3<blockquote>
<i>In <a href="http://theologypeace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-fulfillment-of-scarcity-part1.html">Part 1</a> and <a href="http://theologypeace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-fulfillment-of-solidarity-part-2.html">Part 2</a>, we have been working to pull together insights in modern economics
from Paul Dumouchel's </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect">The Ambivalence of Scarcity</a><i> with Jesus' exposition of the law in
Matthew 5. In this final installment we arrive at Dumouchel's thesis of the modern economic
concept of scarcity as a new form of sacred violence and conclude with questions about the
fulfillment of solidarity as God's project to transform our economics -- and the call of
discipleship to join that project through political engagement.</i>
</blockquote>
What if we read Matthew 5 in terms of a specific kind of 'law,' namely,
solidarity obligations? The
Beatitudes begin by striking the clear note of God's solidarity with the
least in human community
(5:1-12). We are salt and light when follow God's lead (5:13-16). But
here's the fulfillment that
Jesus comes to bring (5:17-20): such solidarity is no longer to be based
on the mechanisms of sacred
violence but on the perfect love of God come into the world through
Jesus. The antitheses of
Matthew 5:21-48 outline how love fulfills the law of solidarity such
that amazing things can happen:
anger can be defused, accused and accuser can be reconciled, lust can be
dissipated, revenge short-circuited, and -- the unthinkable --
solidarity even with one's enemies. We can live that perfect love
of God in ways that begin to fulfill God's true intent for the law --
solidarity of God's household,
the family of creation.<br />
<br />
"Economics": from the Greek <i>oikos</i> and <i>nomos</i>, "household law." In ancient times, that law was
experienced through solidarity obligations that placed the emphasis on making sure the least in the
household had their needs met. No one was in danger of dying of hunger unless everyone was. But
the cost was having those obligations founded in sacred violence. When a situation arose that
modern people call "extreme scarcity," a situation of everyone going hungry, it was the return of
community-dissolving violence that was experienced, not "scarcity."<br />
<br />
On what, then, is our modern economics grounded in? Not solidarity obligations. The effect of
the Christian Revelation has been to loosen the underpinnings of sacred violence from such
obligations, so that solidarity is an individual choice made within a system whose main protection
is precisely for the individual (which Dumouchel calls the "law of exteriority"<sup>(1)</sup>). Modern
individualism thus allows persons to choose against solidarity with the least, and hence, ultimately,
against the common good of the community. The gist of the opening quote from Dumouchel is that
modernity follows the path of the Christian Revelation into a relaxing of many obligations held in
former human political arrangements, <i>but</i> rejects the fulfillment of the most important of those
obligations, solidarity with the least, that is central to the Christian Revelation.<br />
<br />
We may thus propose that modernity has meant the rejection of God's Economics in light of
Jesus' clear mission of launching "God's Kingdom." That the fulfillment of solidarity of all God's
household <i>is</i> the coming of "God's Household Law" is decidedly <i>not</i> what we have with modern
economics, where solidarity with the least is, at best, a sometimes-applauded individual choice.
(With the philosophy of folks like Ayn Rand, solidarity with the least is even derided as a Christian
vice that works against the virtues of the wealthy capitalist.<sup>(2)</sup>) At worst, Dumouchel effectively argues
that the concept of scarcity in modern economics serves the same role of sacred violence -- that of
justifying an allowable violence in the name of keeping other kinds of violence at bay. But the
allowable violence justified by scarcity is quite different and uniquely modern: the violence of
indifference to those who cannot survive without the help of others.<br />
<br />
The modern person no more sees such indifference as violence than did the ancient person see
immolating a person on an altar to the gods as violence. Dumouchel confirms Mahatma Gandhi's
famous dictum that, "Poverty is the worst form of violence":<br />
<blockquote>
The invisibility of violence does not entail the invisibility of its consequences. Third parties
are violent to one another in ways that they do not see and that are, paradoxically, the worst
forms of violence that occur inside the system. We see around us the emergence of
impoverished, miserable, excluded people to whom we have done nothing and never wished
harm. Sacrificed victims appear, and we are the ones who have sacrificed them, by our
indifference. Yet they are not generally our own victims. Since we do not see the link
between our actions and these consequences, between our indifference and the poor, this
strange phenomenon puzzles us.<sup>(3)</sup>
</blockquote>
Modern followers of Christ may recognize this indifference as violence. Spurred on by the best
of our leaders and writers -- Charles Dickens' famous example, for instance, of the transformation
of Ebenezer Scrooge in <i>A Christmas Carol</i> -- individual disciples may find their indifference
transformed into a compassionate solidarity with the poor, through at least the individual choice of
charity to those in need.<br />
<br />
But here are the central questions posed by this essay: Can charity alone -- an individual's
choice to reach out to the poor -- achieve Jesus' promised fulfillment of the law as solidarity of
God's household? Or within the modern "law of exteriority" (the 'sacredness' of individualism) is
charity only a <i>partial</i> fulfillment? Does the persistence, and even worsening, of poverty in our world
confirm charity as only partial? In short: does the fulfillment of solidarity with the least in God's
household ultimately mean <i>a transformation of our human economical relationships</i>? What would
happen if the modern economic justification of indifference by the concept of scarcity was replaced
by giving priority to valuing solidarity, based on a growing awareness of abundance? Bottom line:
Does Jesus' promise that disciples may exceed the justice of the Pharisees mean that disciples are
called to go beyond charity to political engagement? Are disciples of Jesus called to advocate for
'household laws' that more truly work for the common good of all?<br />
<br />
Paul Nuechterlein<br />
Contributing Theologian<br />
Theology & Peace<br />
<br />
<br />
1. Paul Dumouchel, <i></i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect">The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays</a></i> [MSU Press, 2014], 41-44. In previous human
political arrangements, individuals viewed themselves as related internal to their group, with binding solidarity
obligations. In the modern age of Western culture, with solidarity obligations weakened or relaxed, our relationships
within any groups to which we belong are easily abandoned if they are felt to impinge on our freedom as individuals.
Each person, when push comes to shove, sees him/herself as externally related to all others. Dumouchel's "law of
exteriority" is "simply the pure evolution of modern individualism, the gradual externalization and alienation of members
of society" (44) -- with the result that, "The exteriority of members of society transforms all individuals into potential
sacrificial victims" (50). In short, we have the modern 'truth' that each person is only one personal disaster away from
homelessness, with no one else bearing any obligation to help them.<br />
<br />
2. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, wrote this column, "<a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-06-05-Ayn-Rand-and-Jesus-dont-mix_n.htm">You can't reconcile Ayn Rand and
Jesus</a>." For a similar viewpoint, but friendlier to Rand, see Yaholo Hoyt, "<a href="http://www.redletterchristians.org/ayn-rand-vs-jesus-christ-fight/">Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ: FIGHT!</a>" But at
a pivotal point of this latter essay, Hoyt proposes, "I think it is important to point out that Jesus made no direct claim that
what he was asking us to do was better for society. In fact, the positive consequences of Christ's teachings are admittedly
not fully provided in this life at all but 'in heaven.'" My viewpoint in this blog is that Jesus is making a direct claim for
a better society -- a fulfilled creation, no less. The promise of God's law of the household being fulfilled is not only for
'in heaven' but for, as we pray, "on earth as in heaven."<br />
<br />
3. Dumouchel, <i>Scarcity</i>, 53.<br />
<br />Paul Nuechterleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15601008998409006500noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-37128487241321027092015-08-20T13:24:00.000-07:002015-08-22T18:27:41.627-07:00The Fulfillment of Solidarity, Part 2<br />
<blockquote>
<i>In <a href="http://theologypeace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-fulfillment-of-scarcity-part1.html">Part 1</a>, we began reflections weaving together Matthew 5
with Paul Dumouchel's insights
into understanding the shortcomings of modern economics in </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect">The
Ambivalence of Scarcity
and Other Essays<i></i></a><i>. For openers, he challenges
that scarcity as a human experience is based
on the quantity of goods available. We looked first at the
situation of an abundance of goods
that is nonetheless experienced as a scarcity. Next . . .</i>
</blockquote>
That <i>scarcity</i> is a human experience not based on the
quantity of goods available can even be seen
in the circumstances of lacking necessary goods, if one knows <i>when</i>
and where to look. Dumouchel's
next key move is to take the readers to that <i>when</i>: back in
time to archaic human communities,
primarily through Marshall Sahlins' important book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0202010996/girardianreflect">Stone
Age Economics</a></i>.<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(1)</sup></a>
Sahlins' study proposes
that archaic peoples had <i>no</i> experience of scarcity <i>at
all</i>. What they had plenty of he calls "solidarity
obligations":<br />
<blockquote>
the family-based mode of production involves the failure
of a number of units of production
-- in other words, the inability of many households to meet their
own needs. The rules of
social solidarity that govern exchange then intervene to
compensate for the failure. The
wealthiest take care of the needs of the poorest.<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(2)</sup></a>
</blockquote>
In short, "in primitive societies, no one is in danger of dying of
hunger unless everyone is."<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(3)</sup></a><br />
<br />
What happens if everyone is dying of hunger? Don't they
experience <i>scarcity</i>? Not really. At that
point they experience violence and the threat of a complete
breakdown of the community, a situation
that tends toward everyone-against-everyone.<br />
<br />
Those familiar with Mimetic Theory will recognize this as the
"sacrificial crisis," a situation
which will end in one of two ways: (1) the 'apocalyptic'
dissolution of the community, imploding
in its own violence; or (2), a new sacrificial act of
all-against-one (or majority-against-minority)
violence that re-founds the community. (In an archaic community,
could the latter have even
included cannibalism as the beginning of addressing the hunger
crisis?)<br />
<br />
What's crucial to see here is that even the "solidarity
obligations" were dependent on the archaic
experience of sacred violence, and the punishing gods who prop up
the entire system. Solidarity
obligations, which compel the richest to take care of the poorest,
are certainly a good thing. But their
underside was in being compelled to comply under the shadow of
sacred violence.<br />
<br />
It's time to return to our opening quotes. What if we read
Matthew 5 in terms of a specific kind
of 'law,' namely, solidarity obligations? The Beatitudes begin by
striking the clear note of God's
solidarity with the least in human community (5:1-12). We are salt
and light when follow God's lead
(5:13-16). But here's the fulfillment that Jesus comes to bring
(5:17-20): such solidarity is no longer
to be based on the mechanisms of sacred violence but on the
perfect love of God come into the world
through Jesus. The antitheses of Matthew 5:21-48 outline how love
fulfills the law of solidarity such
that amazing things can happen: anger can be defused, accused and
accuser can be reconciled, lust
can be dissipated, revenge short-circuited, and -- the unthinkable
-- solidarity even with one's
enemies. We can live that perfect love of God in ways that begin
to fulfill God's true intent for the
law -- solidarity of God's household, the family of creation.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>In <a href="http://theologypeace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-fulfillment-of-solidarity-part-3.html">Part 3</a>, we will conclude by considering Dumouchel's basic
contention that modern
economics replaces solidarity obligations with a concept of
scarcity that justifies a new form
of sacred violence -- that of indifference to the poor. So we
close with questions around
whether modern day discipleship can fully participate in Jesus'
promised fulfillment of the
law without going beyond charity into political engagement in
economics.</i>
</blockquote>
Paul Nuechterlein<br />
Contributing Theologian<br />
Theology & Peace<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_1_">1. </a>M. Sahlins, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0202010996/girardianreflect">Stone
Age Economics</a></i> (Chicago: Aldine, 1972).
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_2_">2. </a>Paul Dumouchel, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect">The
Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays</a></i> [MSU Press,
2014], 18.
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_3_">3. </a>Ibid., 19, quoting K. Polanyi, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080705643X/girardianreflect">The
Great Transformation</a></i> (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944),
46-47.Paul Nuechterleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15601008998409006500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-42065379017735457642015-08-20T11:05:00.001-07:002015-08-20T13:51:26.789-07:00The Fulfillment of Scarcity, Part1 <blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish
the law or the prophets; I have come
not to abolish but to fulfill.<sup> 18</sup>For truly I tell you,
until heaven and earth pass away, not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until
all is accomplished.<sup> 19</sup>Therefore,
whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches
others to do the same,
will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does
them and teaches them will
be called great in the kingdom of heaven.<sup> 20</sup>For I tell
you, unless your justice exceeds that of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(1)</sup></a>"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"></span>
<div align="right">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">-- Matthew 5:17-20<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(2)</sup></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: normal;"></span>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Given that the
historical effect of Christianity is to progressively ruin the
sacrificial system
and that scarcity spontaneously emerges as traditional bonds of
solidarity are abandoned,
then we should expect this system to arise in a region where
Christianity has long weakened
these bonds. Why it emerged precisely where and when it did, as
well as the role of the state
in this process, is a question too complex to even begin to
answer in the present context.
Nonetheless, what mimetic theory gives us is a means for
understanding the radical novelty
of modern market economies and a reason for their
"unnaturalness." Their historical
specificity is related to the unique breakdown of the
sacrificial system caused by Christian
Revelation. It is also linked to rejection of that Revelation.
Scarcity is what we live in, which
is neither the sacred nor the Kingdom of God.<br />
</span>
<br />
<div align="right">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">--
Paul Dumouchel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect"><i>The
Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays</i></a><sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(3)</sup></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Taken together these two
quotes can be seen to suggest that scarcity as a fundamental
modern
economic concept has arisen because we moderns reject Jesus'
revelation of the fulfillment of the
law. The justice of our modern economies fails to exceed the
justice of the Pharisees (political
leaders of Jesus' day) -- even though a majority of economic
agents in the West throughout the
modern era have claimed to be followers of Jesus. Dumouchel's
analysis of scarcity in the light of
Renè Girard's Mimetic Theory can help us to understand that
failure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: normal;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> The first key move in
Dumouchel's essay is to understand that <i>scarcity</i> is a
human experience
<i>not</i> based on the quantity of goods available.<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(4)</sup></a> Consider, for example, the
situation of a clear excess
of goods in which those blessed with relative abundance continue
to experience scarcity. The reality
of mimetic desire is such that scarcity is experienced relative
to our neighbor. Even if I possess an
abundance of goods, I may still experience that as a <i>scarcity</i>
if it is less than my more wealthy
neighbor. Dumouchel cleverly quotes a modern textbook on
economics which unwittingly undercuts
its own definition of scarcity with this observation:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: normal;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Compared with developing
nations or previous centuries, modern industrial societies
seem
very wealthy indeed. But higher production levels seem to
bring in their train ever-higher
consumption standards. . . . People feel that they want and
'need' indoor plumbing, central
heating, refrigerators, education, movies, radios, television,
books, autos, travel, sports and
concerts, privacy and living space, chic clothes, clean air
and water, safe factories, and so
forth.<sup> </sup><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup>(5)</sup></a>
</span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">That <i>scarcity</i>
is a human experience not based on the quantity of goods available
can even be
seen in the circumstances of lacking necessary goods, if one knows
<i>when</i> and where to look.</span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><i>In <a href="http://theologypeace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-fulfillment-of-solidarity-part-2.html">Part 2</a>, we will once again take Dumouchel as a guide to </i>when<i>
and where to look to see
how scarcity as a human experience is </i>not<i> based on a
lacking of necessary goods, before
rejoining these reflections to Matthew 5.</i></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Paul Nuechterlein<br />
Contributing Theologian<br />
Theology & Peace</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_1_">1. </a>It is a mistake to read "kingdom of
heaven" as meaning a realm separate from earth, as a hope somehow
contrary
to what our Lord teaches disciples to pray, 'your kingdom come ...
on earth as in heaven.' For more on this, see <a href="http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/epiphany4a.htm#kingdom_heaven">my
webpage
on Matthew 5:1-12</a>.
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_2_">2. </a>NRSV translation modified by author for
only one word: "justice" in place of "righteousness" in verse 20
(Gr: <i>dikaiosynē</i>).
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_3_">3. </a>Paul Dumouchel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611861322/girardianreflect"><i>The
Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays</i></a> [MSU Press,
2014], 105-6.
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_4_">4. </a>Dumouchel call this the <i>aporia</i>
of scarcity -- that, "Scarcity corresponds to no real quantity"
(ibid., 12). This is
because mimetic desire induces a circular causality between
production and needs: "higher levels of production lead to
increased needs, and increased needs require even higher levels of
production" (ibid., 11). Obviously, this is a recipe
for unsustainability: "The ambivalence of scarcity dissimulates
the eternal vanity of growth that has now led humanity
down a suicidal path with respect to its natural environment"
(ibid., 12).
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_5_">5. </a>P. Samuelson and W. D. Nordhaus, <i>Economics</i>,
12th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 26. [Note: the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0073511293/girardianreflect">19th
edition</a> is the one currently available, McGraw-Hill, 2009.)</span><br />
<br />Paul Nuechterleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15601008998409006500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-40878710006520311072015-02-19T11:17:00.001-08:002015-02-19T11:17:13.126-08:00From Ashes to Elves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdO_KR1889O5Kb_hTd7_fUbk3czHQZeqO9G6nHZgTIrSjpCajE1nBLjXSSyK3vyymc49HGv2itD0071JEfOVW7Z4MLS6NV1Z-HoVvsWxRhuu6lFUeibEs6tjgPbIx2Jz9eu1NBTIyEbGY/s1600/Crossofashes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdO_KR1889O5Kb_hTd7_fUbk3czHQZeqO9G6nHZgTIrSjpCajE1nBLjXSSyK3vyymc49HGv2itD0071JEfOVW7Z4MLS6NV1Z-HoVvsWxRhuu6lFUeibEs6tjgPbIx2Jz9eu1NBTIyEbGY/s1600/Crossofashes.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and I posted another meditation on the observance on my blog called <a href="http://bit.ly/1MrKt4f" target="_blank">Renouncing Self-Centered Renunciation</a>.<br />
<br />
I have made three posts on an anthropological approach to liturgy called <a href="http://bit.ly/1FLAaUc" target="_blank">Liturgical Animals</a>. From the first installment, you should be able to follow the links to the second and third.<br />
<br />
I have been reflecting quite a lot about economics and questions of economic justice. I have two posts on the subject called <a href="http://bit.ly/1BVUaEv" target="_blank">Mimetic Scarcity</a>. This includes comments on Paul Dumouchel's book <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1138510562?book_show_action=false" target="_blank">The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays</a></i> which I have also reviewed. I also have posted a review on David Harvey's <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1197635131?book_show_action=false" target="_blank">The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism</a></i>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1BpzFwh" target="_blank">In Exile with Jesus</a> offers a Christmas Season meditation about a baby who didn't have a place to lay his head.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1yI79ro" target="_blank">The Tree of Salvation</a> is a review of a book on Norse mythology and its transformation into Christianity which gives a Girardian reading of Nordic myth.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1C7hxsD" target="_blank">Above the Circle of the Earth</a> is a sermon late in Epiphany which looks at the breakthrough in Second Isaiah in understanding creation in contradistinction to Babylonian myth.<br />
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Late in December I published a fantasy novella called <i><a href="http://bit.ly/14kZCmB" target="_blank">The Forest of Windellynn</a></i> that is aimed at young readers (ca. 9-12) but I hope is interesting for older readers as well. The plot is based on legends of elf abduction of children and Gwion, the young protagonist, has to rescue two friends and his sister from the elves. When Gwion encounters the persecutory culture of the elves, he eventually realizes how persecutory his own social life has been as he learns what it means to have a soul. I am hoping that this book might be helpful for young and older readers in understanding some of Girard's insights as well as being an enjoyable read. For those of you coming to the 2015 Theology and Peace conference, I will be bringing a few copies in case anybody is interested. As you can see from my blog page about the book, electronic copies are available in various formats.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-88690317528404719442014-11-08T12:29:00.000-08:002014-11-08T12:29:23.785-08:00Is Church a Four-Letter-Word with Six Letters in it?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Much of my thinking the past several weeks has been about Church---whatever that is. Since Girard's thought indicates that we have to live together whether we like it or not, the problem of Church just won't go away.<br />
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I have completed a five-part series called <a href="http://bit.ly/1wFLk7x" target="_blank">Christian Community</a>. If you follow this first link, you can follow links at the end of each portion to move on to the next one.<br />
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The sermons I have had occasion to preach over this time are all relevant to my thoughts on ecclesiology. <br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1qkzpay" target="_blank">King's Banquet--God's Banquet</a> re: the Parable of the Wedding Banquet & the Guest without the wedding garment brings in more thoughts on the relationship between Church & Empire. <br />
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For All Saints, I preached <a href="http://bit.ly/1DCNUOm" target="_blank">Celebrating the Saints in our Lives</a>. This is more celebratory, but I still can't overlook the fact that some saints have been martyred by their own church.<br />
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Then for the Gospel Parable of the Wise and Foolish Maidens:<a href="http://bit.ly/1x5a50X" target="_blank"> On Gathering with Those who Keep Oil in their Lamps</a>. It is an interesting indication of the work of the Paraclete that many of us feel at least some sympathy for the foolish maidens, even though they are--well--foolish. Maybe it's because we are starting to see more of our own foolishness and need for the oil of God's mercy.<br />
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With my interest in fantasy literature, especially for young readers, I commented on two series that have just come to a conclusion, namely the Percy Jackson set about Greek and Roman demigods & The Unwind Dystology by Neal Schusterman:<a href="http://bit.ly/1FMw0wn" target="_blank">On Healing the Gods and the Social Body</a>. I especially urge you to pay attention to Neal Schusterman as he shows some of the keenest insights into mimetic issues among writers catering to youth & the young of heart.<br />
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While on the subject of fantasy literature, I didn't expect much of the small trilogy <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1096455488" target="_blank">The Cloak Society </a>but I was pleasantly surprised by the character development & mimetic issues involved. Basically it is about a boy raised in a secret society of super-villains who, on his first job of helping with a bank hoist discovers he has a conscience. This link takes you to what I said about the first volume. You can look of the other two on GoodReads if you want to read those short reviews as well.<br />
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And then there is music. Is Girard relevant to music? Well, yes. I read "Absolute Music: the History of an Idea" because of my interest in music & found some Girardian themes you can read about in <a href="http://bit.ly/1u00GHl" target="_blank">Rivalry over Pure Music</a>. Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-71835640154246898362014-09-19T07:14:00.001-07:002014-11-08T11:56:11.226-08:00Mimetic Forgiveness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Forgiveness issues have taken up pretty much all of my blog posts in the past few weeks. The Gospel texts from Matthew that have come up in the lectionary during this time has added to this. To give the order in Matthew's Gospel for my two postings which is the reverse of when I posted them: <a href="http://bit.ly/1lFyXIi" target="_blank">Binding and Loosing </a>deals with the process of admonitions and Jesus' words about binding and loosing; <a href="http://bit.ly/1tkizzu" target="_blank">The Sin Against the Holy Spirit </a>deals with the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.<br />
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I have done a series with three parts on <a href="http://bit.ly/1Abnp0D" target="_blank">The Process of Forgiveness</a>. I have given the link to the first post which will lead to the others.<br />
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Yesterday, I posted a review of an important book <i>U.S. War-Culture, Sacrifice and Salvation</i> by Kelly Denton-Borhaug and discussed her critiques of Girard and Mark Heim. The post is <a href="http://bit.ly/YVRh61" target="_blank">American War Sacrifice.</a> Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-24006304646236454222014-08-26T07:01:00.000-07:002014-08-26T07:01:38.575-07:00Seeking Eschatalogical Peace & the Way of PrayerIn the past few weeks I have been exploring the alleged eschatological violence in Matthew's Gospel. My reviews of <a href="http://bit.ly/1szQy7n" target="_blank">A Peaceable Hope</a> by David J. Neville and <a href="http://bit.ly/1oYHbbb" target="_blank">The Nonviolent Messiah</a> by Joseph J. Simon. I have just read an even more helpful book called <i>The Banished Messiah</i> by Robert R. Beck. I will try to review it soon & a link to it should appear in the Theology & Peace Facebook page. My sermon on the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds<a href="http://bit.ly/1qg2mL2" target="_blank"> Jesus the Rejected Cornerstone among the Weeds </a>also speaks to this concern. <br />
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I have also been exploring the Difficulties in Forgiving with the first post discussing <a href="http://bit.ly/TBWa0Q" target="_blank">Jacob and Esau</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/1ke6XVR" target="_blank">Joseph and His Brothers</a>.I am planning to do some more posts on the delicate issue of forgiveness so stay tuned.<br />
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For our celebration of St. Benedict's Day this year, I preached a sermon<a href="http://bit.ly/1kJwAxQ" target="_blank"> St. Benedict: a Personal Sketch </a>which outlines what we can glean of Benedict 's character and personality from the Rule.<br />
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I also reviewed James Carroll's stimulating book <a href="http://bit.ly/1rrgWPq" target="_blank">Jerusalem Jerusalem</a> which provides us with a Girardian analysis of the history of Jerusalem in history and more important and fatefully, in the human imagination. <br />
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Finally, for now, I have completed a series on the traditional <a href="http://bit.ly/1xvDz3J" target="_blank">Five Kinds of Prayer</a>. I discuss these kinds of prayer in the light of mimetic theory, looking at how an awareness of mimetic desire and deepen our understanding of prayer. This link to the first article on petitionary prayer.<br />
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If you want to go straight to the blog's homepage. click<a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank"> here</a>. Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-30569184903554070362014-08-07T06:20:00.000-07:002014-08-07T06:20:23.019-07:00Abundance Is a Spiritual MatterOn Sunday I wove together contemplative prayer, an MT account of the dualism of abundance and scarcity, and the current crisis at our southern border involving unaccompanied children. Here is a link to that sermon:<br />
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<a href="http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper13a_2014_ser.htm">http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper13a_2014_ser.htm</a>Theology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-11108614587500479472014-06-23T12:54:00.000-07:002014-06-23T12:54:46.379-07:00Respect and Humility and the Paschal Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Again, it has been quite a while since I posted an update on my blog "<a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a>," so there is much to update.<br />
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During Holy Week, I posted<a href="http://bit.ly/1l7Gw5E" target="_blank"> Escape from the Denial of Death</a> where my mediation on the Cross interacted with Richard Beck's book on Ernest Becker's thesis on how the denial of death tends to make people more violent.<br />
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For Easter, I posted <a href="http://bit.ly/PbRmNh" target="_blank">The Earthquake that Saves</a> which I have to admit presupposes some understanding of Girard's thought to work as a standalone post.<br />
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After Easter, I embarked on a series of posts on Respect and Humility as two fundamental abiding attitudes that build "good" mimesis and relieve competitive mimesis. There are three posts on <a href="http://bit.ly/1m2wu60" target="_blank">Respect</a>, a humble virtue but an important one. The first post should lead to the the other two. Speaking of humility, there is a post on <a href="http://bit.ly/1jYRFCT" target="_blank">Vainglory</a> which is a vice noted by early Eastern writers such as John Cassian followed by two posts on <a href="http://bit.ly/1l8SVsc" target="_blank">Humility</a>.<br />
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There is the post <a href="http://bit.ly/1ljsDzP" target="_blank">Stumbling over Stumbling Stones</a> that points to issues of ecclesiology, what it means to be church.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1kdTTmW" target="_blank">Freud's Illusion and the Paschal Mystery</a> is a reflection on yet another book by Richard Beck, namely one on Freud and William James.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/SPNeoF" target="_blank">The Power of the Ascended Lord</a> is, as one might guess, another meditation on the Ascension of Christ.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1w3CwJi" target="_blank">Accepting the Cross</a> is the latest posting which discusses the Gospel for the second Sunday after Pentecost, particularly Jesus' words about taking up his cross.<br />
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The picture is what our cemetery looked like after some small tornadoes ripped through the abbey property two years ago. Fallen trees missed the cross by inches. Fortunately, none of the abbey buildings took a direct hit.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-30485669242330793222014-06-16T05:10:00.001-07:002014-06-16T05:10:57.340-07:00Oneness and ContemplationThere is a story about <strong>Mahatma Gandhi</strong> that fits my
experience the past several weeks. A mother brought her young son to
Gandhi because she knew he was a loving, helpful man, and because
her son looked up to him. "I've tried to tell my son," she told
Gandhi, "that he eats too much sugar. It's not good for him. Can you
please tell him not to eat so much sugar?" He thought for a moment
and told her, "Bring him back in two weeks, and I will have an
answer for him." The mother was a bit surprised. Why would waiting a
couple weeks make a difference for something so simple. But she did
what he asked, and brought him back. Gandhi's response was the same:
"Bring him back in two weeks, and I will have an answer for him."
Again, she brought him back, and again he asked for two more weeks.
Finally, on the fourth try, Gandhi stooped down to address the boy.
"You should stop eating so much sugar. It's not good for you."
What?! Now the mother was a bit angry. "Why couldn't you have told
him that the first time we came to you?!" "Because," said Gandhi, "I
needed time myself to stop eating so much sugar. It was harder than
I thought. I couldn't ask your son to do something I'm not willing
to do myself." <br />
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The last couple weeks I've spoken to you about the importance to the
Christian life of a certain form of prayer. In popular parlances,
it's most often called "meditation." Today, it's increasingly
referred to as "Mindfulness." In Christian circles, I've most often
heard it talked about as "Contemplation." Whatever we call it, it's
a form of prayer that uses silence and attempts to calm the mind by
stemming the normal flow of thinking. And I think it's become a lost
art in the Christian tradition that we very much need to retrieve. <br />
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But I feel a bit like Gandhi with that boy. Because even though I've
been becoming more convinced of its necessity for a healthy
Christian life, I've struggled a to fall into a regular practice
myself. I was not raised with contemplative practice at all. It was
never taught to me in Sunday School or Confirmation. We didn't even
have anything on it in seminary. It's been absent to my life of
faith, until about three years ago, when I first started reading
Franciscan priest and teacher <strong>Richard Rohr</strong>. Here's
his most recent book, in fact, titled <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1616367571/girardianreflect">Silent
Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation</a></em>. Finding God
in contemplation. Through Rohr -- and also Sr. Nancy Brousseau, who
leads our synod's education center, and who led our Church Council
on an experience of this type of prayer -- I've been learning about
the great mystics who listened to God in prayer and became great
leaders and saints. But an important part of the message has been
that it's not just for mystics and saints. It's for everyone. (We'll
follow up on this point next week, in fact, as we read in the
Pentecost story about God's Spirit being poured out on <em>all</em>
people.) <br />
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Contemplation is a form of prayer that has been passed on in the
Christian tradition for everyone to practice, even though often
times it was only in the monasteries. Since the Reformation, it even
went somewhat dormant in the monasteries. It's just been in the last
fifty years or so that it's made a revival there, too. The best
place to <em>learn</em> contemplative prayer, in fact, is generally
at your local monastery. I took my first class on contemplative
prayer at the <a href="http://transformationscenter.org/">Transformation
Center</a> at old Nazareth College on Gull Road. <br />
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But my practice has remained spotty. So, like Gandhi, I've been
reluctant to ask you all to do something that I'm not willing to do
myself. It's been in recent weeks that my own motivation to practice
received a big boost to rededicate myself to faithful practice of
contemplation. It came through an unexpected source -- the book I've
plugged the last two weeks, titled <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062265423/girardianreflect">10%
Happier</a></em>, by ABC news anchor <strong>Dan Harris</strong>.
It's basically his personal account of being ushered into the
benefits of meditation pretty much kicking and screaming. He's
unreligious himself and so resisted all the way, because meditation
is usually connected with religious practice. But increasingly he
relented because it did help him a great deal. It began when he had
a horrifying moment of experiencing a panic attack while on the air
for <em>Good Morning America</em> about ten years ago -- in front
of 5 million viewers. He knew that if he wanted to keep his career,
he needed to make sure that it never happened again. So he takes the
reader through a fascinating story, both into the world of TV news
and the personal benefits of meditation -- all with great humor and
wit. His account of enduring a <em>10</em>-day silent retreat is
hilarious. He hated most of it, yet it was also one of the most
profound experiences of his life. <br />
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What has helped me is to see the Christian practice of contemplation
in light of a more general human practice of what we might consider
mental or spiritual hygiene. Harris writes, for example: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
On my travels to various Buddhist seminars, I had
started to hear mentions of scientific research into meditation.
It sounded promising, so I checked it out. What I found blew my
mind. Meditation, once part of the counterculture, had now fully
entered the scientific mainstream. It had been subjected to
thousands of studies, suggesting an almost laughably long list of
health benefits, including salutary effects on the following:
major depression, drug addiction, binge eating, smoking cessation,
stress among cancer patients, loneliness among senior citizens,
ADHD, asthma, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome.<br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Studies also indicated that meditation reduced levels
of stress hormones, boosted the immune system, made office workers
more focused, and improved test scores on the GRE. Apparently
mindfulness did everything short of making you able to talk to
animals and bend spoons with your mind. (pp. 167-68) <br />
</blockquote>
A frustration, though, of this practice is that it's hard to put in
a book. It's one of those practices that's best passed on person to
person. As Dan Harris became interested in trying meditation, he was
frustrated by not being able to find it in a book, which is partly
why he was motivated to write his book. The appendix is worth the
price for its basic instructions of how to practice meditation --
though he, too, admits that it is best to learn <em>with</em>
someone who knows the practice. But here's just another brief
snippet about why it's important:<br />
<blockquote>
Meditation is the best tool I know for neutralizing the
voice in the head. As discussed, the ego is often a hatchery of
judgments, desires, assumptions, and diabolical plans. The act of
simply feeling the breath breaks the habits of a lifetime. For
those short snatches of time when you're focused on the rise and
fall of the abdomen or the cool air entering and exiting the
nostrils, the ego is muzzled. You are not thinking, you are being
mindful -- an innate but underused ability we all have, which
allows us to be aware without judging.<br />
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When you repeatedly go through the cycle of feeling the breath,
losing your focus, and hauling yourself back, you are building
your mindfulness muscle the way dumbbell curls build your biceps.
Once this muscle is just a little bit developed, you can start to
see all the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that carom
through your skull for what they really are: quantum squirts of
energy without any concrete reality of their own.<br />
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Imagine how massively useful this can be. Normally, for example,
when someone cuts you off in traffic or in line at Starbucks, you
automatically think, <em>I'm [mad]</em>. Instantaneously, you
actually <em>become</em> [mad]. Mindfulness allows you to slow
that process down. Sometimes, of course, you're right to be [mad].
The question is whether you are going to react mindlessly to that
anger or respond thoughtfully. Mindfulness provides space between
impulse and action, so you're not a slave to whatever neurotic
obsession pops into your head. (pp. 230-31) <br />
</blockquote>
Sound helpful? Let's finish up with at least a hint of why I think
this is so important to our Christian practice. Richard Rohr has a
chapter in this little book on contemplative prayer called "The Path
to Non-Dual Thinking." What's dual thinking? Our normal thinking of
judging everything in pairs, the basic one being good and bad, but
also pairs like pain and pleasure, suffering and joy. The voice in
our heads, as Harris calls it, is constantly judging everything
along some line of good and bad. Non-dual thinking, as Rohr calls
it, is not to think away good and bad but to be aware of it in less
judgmental ways <em>because</em> you are aware of the <em>oneness</em>
of everything. <br />
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If the Gospel readings from John in recent weeks have sound mystical
to you, let me suggest it is because of our usual dual thinking.
When we are on the path to non-dual thinking, these passages
actually begin to make more sense. And the bottom line of it all
comes in the closing words to today's reading. Jesus ends his
farewell to the disciples praying to his Father that "they may be
one, just as we are one." Oneness. That's the antidote to the
dangers of dual thinking, our normal thinking. Our most immediate <em>reaction</em>
to judging something bad is to expel it, often with any force we can
muster. Through Contemplation, we learn the practice of <em>responding</em>
instead of <em>reacting</em>. We learn to hold off our normal
reaction of trying to violently expel the bad, and instead respond
with love. That doesn't mean there aren't bad things that need to be
resisted. There are! And we are called to resist them. But with a
response of love, not a reaction of anger and force. <br />
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Why? Because, first of all, in love we are aware of our <em>own</em>
badness, our own sin. As Luther taught at his most mystical moment,
we are all saints and sinners at the same time. We learn to see the
oneness of everything, the good and the bad together. And so,
second, we learn that the only ultimate way for the bad to be healed
is love. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, You can't drive out
darkness with darkness; only with light. You can't drive out hate
with hate; only with love. Contemplative prayer is about
interrupting the dual thinking and reacting, so that we might
instead respond with love.Theology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-26519978855007991522014-06-16T05:06:00.004-07:002014-06-16T05:12:16.806-07:00Spiritual Abiding and ContemplationThe timing of <b>Brian Robinette</b>'s insightful presentation at the <a href="http://www.theologyandpeace.org/Conferences.html">2014 Annual Conference of Theology & Peace</a> coincided with my my own growing interest in Contemplative Spirituality, which had been part of my preaching in the latter part of the Easter Season. What follows are two pieces on contemplation; the first a parish newsletter column on John 14 and the second a sermon on John 17.<br />
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Our Gospel readings from John at the end of the Easter season give a brilliant example of the
older and newer reading of our Christian message. Let's begin with a beloved passage that gives
much comfort at a time of loss, a passage that is often read at funerals. Jesus, on the eve of Good
Friday, says to his disciples,<br />
<blockquote>
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's
house there are many abiding places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to
prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:1-3)</blockquote>
Even though "heaven" is not mentioned here, the older reading of this passage is that it's
about Jesus taking us to heaven when we die -- a message of immense comfort when we face
death, either our own or our loved ones. It is truly a "Blessed Assurance" that God holds us in
life when our earthly bodies die.<br />
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The newer reading of this passage does not take away or diminish this assurance but extends
it to this life -- not just to when we die. It is about the new possibility of "heaven" coming to us
through the cross and resurrection, not us waiting to go to heaven someday in the future. The
abiding places that Jesus prepares for us? First himself, and then you and me. The many abiding
places of God's house become <i>us</i>!<br />
<br />
This way of reading comes from the wider context of John's Gospel -- "my Father's house"
and his specialized use of "abiding." "My Father's house" appears only one other time, in John 2.
When Jesus is taking prophetic action in the Jerusalem Temple, he says, "Stop turning my
Father's house into a marketplace" (2:16). Here "my Father's house" means the Temple, the
traditional locus of God's presence in the world.<br />
<br />
But Jesus is about to change the traditional thinking. When the temple leaders confront Jesus
about his authority to cause such a stir in the holy place, Jesus responds with a baffling
statement: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (2:19). No further
explanation from Jesus. Only John the Gospel Writer tells us the reader, "But he was speaking of
the temple of his body" (2:21). In other words, the three days of Good Friday to Easter worked
the miracle of, among other things, changing the place of God's presence in the world from the
temple to Jesus' body. That's what he means when he later says, "I go to prepare a place for
you." The basic place of God's presence in the world is no longer to be sought out in a building.
The place has shifted to a human body.<br />
<br />
But not to just one body, Jesus' body, because Jesus, in being raised up on the cross and on
Easter morning, is "ascending to my Father" (20:17). And so in John's 'Pentecost' scene, on
Easter evening, this happens:<br />
<blockquote>
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
(John 20:21-22)</blockquote>
This is the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate, that Jesus promises to send us in John 14-16, the same
passage where he also steps up all the talk about "abiding." Laced throughout these chapters are
multiple ways of Jesus talking about spiritual abiding. Jesus is in the Father, and the Father in
him. Using the image of the vine and branches, he tells us that he will abide in us and we in him.
This is all topped off with a lot of talk about love. We are to abide in Jesus' love and his love in
us. And the giving of the Spirit is involved in all of this abiding.<br />
<br />
Do you see? Yes, when we die -- when our loved ones die -- we/they abide in God's power
of life. This is true! It is certain! It is a great comfort! But it's also all true because the abiding in
God, and God in us, has already begun since the first Easter. In going to the cross, Jesus went to
prepare a place for us and in us. He makes it evident that God's abiding Spirit is not limited to a
holy building. The place of God's abiding in the world is first and foremost in human beings. It's
supposed to have been that way from the beginning, as we were made in God's image to be
God's image bearers. Sin got in the way, and so Jesus was sent to go to the cross as the way to
make happen what was always God's intention. God's abiding Spirit desires to abide in us that
we may bear God's loving presence to others, and to the whole Creation. Even as the Father sent
Jesus, so now he sends us -- with God's Spirit abiding in and among us, so that we do the same
work as Jesus, and even greater work (14:12). God wants to help us <i>come alive</i> in new and fresh
ways right here and now. God wants us to be part of God's work of making everything come
alive.<br />
<br />
Wow! But what does that mean on a practical, everyday level? This is where I think our older
way of reading these passages has gotten in the way. It has put the focus of our hope on what
happens after we die, such that our work in the present has been focused on believing certain
things about Jesus as the key to getting to heaven <i>someday</i>. Yes, we are assured of life after
death. But the really important message is that God calls us to come alive <i>today</i>. We are to
follow in Jesus' work of battling the powers of sin and death in God's work of making
everything come alive.<br />
<br />
What does this look like? Since the newer readings are new, what this looks like is still in the
process of coming into focus, of emerging. I think the new Pope is onto something in taking the
name of one our Christian history's greatest saints, Francis of Assisi, as one benchmark in the
past for understanding our task today. One of the most important guides for me in recent years
has been the Franciscan priest and teacher, <b>Fr. Richard Rohr</b>. His <a href="https://cac.org/">Center for Action and Contemplation</a> names for me the twin foci of what this will look like, naming, too, what we have
seen in our Gospels from John 14-20. <i>Action</i> names the <i>work</i> Jesus talks about throughout John's
Gospel, the work of loving one another as Jesus loves us, a work that heals us and makes us
come alive in new ways. It is a work of God's Justice and Peace, of bearing God's presence to
Creation as we were made to do from the beginning. <i>Contemplation</i> names the <i>spiritual abiding</i>
in John's Gospel, the process of God's Spirit coming to abide in us that sends us out to do Jesus'
work. Rohr often says that the most important word in the name of his Center is <i>and</i>. Action <i>and</i>
Contemplation always accompany each other.<br />
<br />
Finally, in recent sermons I promised to say more in my newsletter column about <b>Dan Harris</b>'
recent book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062265423/girardianreflect">10% Happier</a>: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing
My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works -- A True Story</i>. I chose to begin here with
reading our Easter Gospel texts. Harris' book comes under what Rohr names as Contemplation.
So I'll promise to say more in next month's newsletter column. For now, I leave you with
suggestions for summer reading: Harris' book, and then two coming out this summer: <b>Brian
McLaren</b>'s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1455514004/girardianreflect">We Make the Road by Walking</a>: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation,
Reorientation, and Activation</i>, and <b>Richard Rohr</b>'s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1455514004/girardianreflect">Eager to Love</a>: The Alternative Way of
Francis of Assisi</i>.<br />
<br />
Have a great summer!Theology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-90710209661453775122014-04-07T13:22:00.002-07:002014-04-07T13:23:36.016-07:00Learning to Read, Learning to See, Learning to Bless<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here is an update of posts on my blog<a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank"> Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1lPqf8V" target="_blank">Human Weakness the Cornerstone</a> reflects on our attitudes towards the handicapped in light of mimetic theory.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1kfDaxK" target="_blank">The Servant of the Servants of God</a> is my sermon for St. Gregory's day this year. It notes the fighting among the disciples.<br />
<br />
There follows two posts on how not to read and how to read based on what we learn from Ren<b>é </b>Girard and St. Ignatius: <a href="http://bit.ly/1hyf9PU" target="_blank">Quixotic Reading</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/Q11iur" target="_blank">Reading Ignatiusly</a>. (Pardon my clumsy neologism)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1gYI2mb" target="_blank">Seeing with More than the Eyes</a> is my sermon for Lent IV about the man born blind.<br />
<br />
Shakespeare's <i>Merchant of Venice</i> has been on my mind lately and as I began to see it as a pretty complete illustration of Girard's thesis, I shared my thoughts in <a href="http://bit.ly/1pNSBzE" target="_blank">Proving Shylock Right---or Wrong</a>.<br />
<br />
Finally (for now) I have published two posts called "Mimetic Blessing through Abraham:" 1) <a href="http://bit.ly/1q5vLSl" target="_blank">Cain and Abel</a> and 2) <a href="http://bit.ly/1gEGb6i" target="_blank">Abraham's Offspring</a>.<br />
<br />
Now for Passiontide and Easter!Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-60916943388054823302014-04-04T12:15:00.000-07:002014-04-04T19:22:41.839-07:00From Noah to EasterThe following is a column I wrote for our Parish newsletter in April 2014:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>...and the earth was filled with violence</i>. -- Genesis 6:11</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>"I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters
of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."</i> -- Genesis 9:11</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Jesus said [on Easter Evening], "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer
these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the
prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.</i> -- Luke
24:26-27</blockquote>
I'd like to connect the dots on these Bible passages, drawing a line from the story of Noah
and the Flood to our Holy Week journey this month. (We will read the Flood story during our
Easter Vigil worship April 19.) The Bible's Flood story (Genesis 6-9) is getting significant
exposure in our culture right now because of the Hollywood version in the movie <i>Noah</i>, starring
Russell Crowe. This exposure is an opportunity for today's outspoken atheists to make their
claim that humanity no longer needs gods who perform genocides that include drowning babies.<br />
<br />
Have you ever tried responding to such challenges among your friends, or family? Perhaps
you've struggled with such questions yourself. How is it that the loving God we meet in Jesus
Christ drowns basically <i>everyone</i> in trying to solve the problem of violence?<br />
<br />
Let me be blunt: if we don't let Jesus himself teach us to read the Scriptures according to
himself, then our Christian faith will be lost. The story of the Flood is a prime example. Christ
came to show us who God truly is. So we should be able to understand that gods who command
genocidal floods are the gods of old -- the gods who in every culture command a good and
sacred violence to stop the flood of human violence. The God who places a rainbow covenant in
the sky -- precisely as a promise to never try to solve the problem of violence by <i>inflicting</i> more
violence -- is the God we meet in Christ. God on the cross <i>suffers</i> our violence.<br />
<br />
So what do we say about all the parts of the Bible where "God" kills or commands killing?
This, to me, is the most important question to get right in learning to read Scriptures according to
Christ. During the Easter season, we will also read heavily from the Book of Acts, where the first
half features five sermons from the Apostle Peter. Despite the varying situations and overall
messages of these five sermons, each one of them contains the central point we need to see in
undergoing the story of Christ's death and resurrection. In all five, Peter says, 'we kill, God
raises.' It's human beings who have the problem with violence, not God.<br />
<br />
And a huge part of our problem is that the only way we human beings have ever been able to
fully trust in solving <i>our</i> problem with violence is to use a counter-violence -- just like God
supposedly did with the Flood. What I'm saying, then, is this: if we don't learn to see the God
who slaughters everyone in the Flood as the false gods of human cultures, then we are losing the
revelation of God in Christ -- the God who is revealed in the rainbow promise at the end of the
Flood story.<br />
<br />
Which brings us again to the essential importance of anthropology to our faith. We must
understand what the Bible, coming to fulfillment in Christ, is trying to show us about ourselves.
The Flood story is an ideal example, because similar flood stories are present across the globe. It
gives us the opportunity to see how the Bible's Flood story is different. The Bible's story is the same in seeing a
god who uses violence to try to stop violence. But it's different in showing us a God who promises
never to do this. God on the cross in Jesus teaches us how to understand this difference.<br />
<br />
And it's growing more urgent that we do so, because we now possess the technology to
destroy ourselves with our own violence. Actually, that's precisely why flood stories are so
universal in human culture. Since our beginnings as a species, we've feared wiping ourselves out
through our own contagious violence. A common image for this fear has been an all-engulfing
flood. The Genesis story names this flat-out: "The earth was filled with violence." Just like the
flood by which God supposedly uses in trying to stop it! But god using a flood belies that age-old <i>human</i>
answer of trying to stop violence with violence.<br />
<br />
Without going into all the details of the anthropology here, let's at least name God's startling
alternative to our human answer of stopping violence by <i>inflicting</i> a counter-violence. God
<i>suffers</i> our violence on the cross, shows it to be impotent compared to God's life-giving power of
love on Easter, and enacts the healing power of forgiveness in the giving of the Spirit. The cross
and resurrection <i>is</i> God saving us from the flood of our human violence that threatens to destroy
us.<br />
<br />
Where is that salvation? Why is the world still so filled with violence? Remember, God's
way is not to use counter-force, so the transformation will not happen with the speed or methods
we typically choose. It might look more like the movement Gandhi began in having faith in Jesus' Sermon
on the Mount. That's why we emphasize faith in God's way, trying to understand the ways in
which it's different from our ways.<br />
<br />
Let me finish, then, by suggesting that the cross and resurrection can turn the Flood story into
a different sort of parable. Learning to interpret the Scriptures according to Jesus might suggest
the following kind of twist that Jewish philosopher Günther Anders offered under the shadow of
nuclear proliferation. He pictures Noah as prophetically making a public show of mourning in
advance of the Flood, and writes,<br />
<blockquote>
Soon a small crowd of curious people had gathered around him. They asked him
questions. They asked if someone had died, and who the dead person was. Noah replied
to them that many had died, and then, to the great amusement of his listeners, said that
they themselves were the dead of whom he spoke. When he was asked when this
catastrophe had taken place, he replied to them: "Tomorrow." Profiting from their
attention and confusion, Noah drew himself up to his full height and said these words:
"The day after tomorrow, the flood will be something that will have been. And when the
flood will have been, <i>everything that is will never have existed</i>.
When the flood will have
carried off everything that is, everything that will have been, it will
be too late to remember, for there will no longer be anyone alive. And
so there will no longer be any
difference between the dead and those who mourn them. <i>If I have come before you, it is in
order to reverse time</i>, to mourn tomorrow's dead today. The day after tomorrow it will be
too late." With this he went back whence he had come, took off the sackcloth [that he
wore], cleaned his face of the ashes that covered it, and went to his workshop. That
evening a carpenter knocked on his door and said to him: "Let me help you build the ark,
<i>so that it may become false</i>." Later a roofer joined them, saying: "It is raining over the
mountains, let me help you, so that it may become false."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup> (1)</sup></a></blockquote>
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, may our journey through the grief of Good Friday and the
promise of Easter call us to work on the ark of God's salvation in Christ, the work of love and
forgiveness, so that our way of violence may become false.<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
Paul
Nuechterlein<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="N_1_">1. </a> This version of Anders' parable is from Jean-Pierre Dupuy's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804776903/girardianreflect"><i>The Mark of the Sacred</i></a>
(Stanford, 2013), p. 203, who makes the following citation (footnote 14): Quoted in Thierry
Simonelli, <i>Günther Anders: De la désuétude de l'homme</i> (Paris:
Editions du Jasmin, 2004), 84-85. The emphasis is mine. Simonelli very
closely follows Anders's German text, found in the
first chapter of <i>Endzeit and Zeitenende</i> (Munich: Beck, 1972), a
work that has not yet been translated into either French or English.
Anders told the story of the flood elsewhere and in other
forms, particularly in <i>Hiroshima ist überall</i> (Munich: Beck, 1982).
Theology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-31832366571207880742014-03-06T15:39:00.001-08:002014-03-06T15:39:59.910-08:00From Epiphany to Ash Wednesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is quite a journey of blog posts since I last summarized what I had published on<a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank"> Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a>. I didn't realize it had been that long!<br />
<br />
As week after Christmas, I posted some reflections for the Feast of the Holy Name (formerly the Circumcision of Jesus) <a href="http://bit.ly/1hdiLKJ" target="_blank">The Name of Names</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/KE2G3r" target="_blank">The Class Comedian</a> is a Girardian reflection of a bit of my childhood; an example of mimetic processes at a young age.<br />
<br />
The phrase "<a href="http://bit.ly/1bh2TTV" target="_blank">Myth Become Fact</a>" has stuck with me ever since I first read it in the writings of C.S. Lewis. The post of that title compares the insight of Lewis and the kindred insight of JRR Tolkien with René Girard's take on mythology.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/L6UWpM" target="_blank">Principalities and Powers</a> is a brief look at the social matrix fueled by mimetic desire.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1bzg92W" target="_blank">The Cross as a Crisis of Faith</a> reflects on the faith journey of Rachel Held Evans narrated in her book <i>Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl who Knew all the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions</i>. On telling incident is the focus of this post.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1eNEwdg" target="_blank">Twin Killings </a>is a brief look at the tendency of many early cultures to kill one or both twins, seeing in them images of mimetic doubles, something Girard has commented on.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1eaLYz9" target="_blank">Sacrificing the Aztecs</a> is a brief examination of the Aztecs' sacrificial practice, noting their humanity and how it was caught in their system.<br />
<br />
The Transfiguration comes up twice a year, and the last Sunday of Epiphany is one of them. <a href="http://bit.ly/1bW3ahd" target="_blank">The Transfigured Glory of God's Children</a> comments on what kind of "glory" is being offered.<br />
<br />
Ash Wednesday was only yesterday and my reflections focus on the collect for the day from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer: <a href="http://bit.ly/NoxjLd" target="_blank">Respecting all Things God Has Made</a>.<br />
<br />
I wish you all a blessed Lent that brings you closer to God.<br />
<br />Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-12715941452229735642014-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:002014-01-08T13:35:51.778-08:00Interim Contributing TheologianI am Paul Nuechterlein, a parish pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Portage, MI (Kalamazoo). For those who don't know me, I've been active with the larger Girardian community -- the Colloquium on Violence and Religion (COV&R) -- for more than 20 years, and with Theology & Peace since the beginning. In the late 90's I began developing lectionary pages around Girard's anthropology, which in 2001 became the website "<a href="http://girardianlectionary.net/">Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary</a>."<br />
<br />
I was elected to the Theology & Peace Board in 2012, and last Fall was appointed by the Board to serve as Interim Contributing Theologian (succeeding Tony Bartlett until the Board finds a permanent replacement). One of my duties is to make regular contributions to this blog. Tony graced us with wonderful essays. I'm going to approach it a bit differently. Since I already write on a regular basis for my website, I will occasionally share brief portions from my website along with a link to the longer reflections.<br />
<br />
It is an honor to serve you as Contributing Theologian. Grace and peace to all as we begin 2014!Theology & Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761119602853287892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-56322081946307616572013-12-23T07:32:00.000-08:002013-12-23T07:32:02.746-08:00Breaking Bread with the Christ Child<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since Christmas is so close, I will start with noting my most recent blog post<a href="http://bit.ly/1drVGyv" target="_blank"> Unwrapping the Future</a> which is about the challenge Christmas poses for us. I don't mean to spoil Christmas but to deepen its meaning to strengthen us in a world growing darker and colder.<br />
<br />
To take a step back, there is an Advent meditation called <a href="http://bit.ly/IAsoUk" target="_blank">Whose Axe, Whose Winnowing Forks?</a> This draws the contrast between John the Baptist along with the prophetic tradition of Israel and Jesus.<br />
<br />
I also posted an article I wrote for the Abbey Letter which deals with Mary, a suitable subject for Advent and Christmas called <a href="http://bit.ly/18FhoSm" target="_blank">Mary in the Place of Shame and Glory</a>.<br />
<br />
I complemented by mini-series on Baptism with a three-part mini-series on the Eucharist which has overlapping themes with the former. The first post is <a href="http://bit.ly/1hXOD7d" target="_blank">Eucharist: Christ our Passover</a>. You can follow the links in the posts to get to the second and third parts.<br />
<br />
Questions of the human self in light of mimetic theory and the Gospel have been a growing preoccupation with me. I have begun exploring this in my post <a href="http://bit.ly/1cxamKV" target="_blank">I Me Me Mine</a> which brings in George Harrison, Thomas Merton and others.<br />
<br />
I have also compiled a page that lists blog posts by the <a href="http://bit.ly/18TFV0c" target="_blank">seasons of the year</a> as an aid for those who wish to look them up in that way.<br />
<br />
If you prefer, you can go straight to the main page of my blog <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a>.<br />
<br />
A blessed Christmas Tide to all.<br />
<br />Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-48810469403013122642013-11-16T07:53:00.001-08:002013-11-16T07:53:44.549-08:00Baptism and Resurrected Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since my last post on this blog, I have added several more items to my blog. Since resentment is a big problem for all of us, I have posted two articles on the subject: <a href="http://bit.ly/H5DocC" target="_blank">Resentment: the Glue that Keeps us Stuck Together </a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/HhKjQ1" target="_blank">Renouncing Resentment</a>.<br />
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On a more positive note is <a href="http://bit.ly/1dJRQ7L" target="_blank">Mimetic Laughter</a> which looks at an aspect of positive mimesis which is often overlooked.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/HukiNf" target="_blank">Caring for the Dead</a> has some thoughts for All Souls day and how we can continue to relate to the departed in positive and healthful ways. Related to this is <a href="http://bit.ly/175uli3" target="_blank">Jesus Explodes with Life: His Reply to the Sadducee</a>s which opens us up to the explosion of the resurrected life.<br />
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<i>The Secret Zoo</i> is a charming but also spiritually challenging set of five novels for young readers as well as older ones that I comment on briefly in <a href="http://bit.ly/1cYIqSm" target="_blank">Uncovering the Secrets of the Secret Zoo</a> Anyone with children in their lives who might like to read about children riding a polar bear and a rhinoceros should get these books.<br />
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I have just completed a series on <a href="http://bit.ly/1e1nbQJ" target="_blank">Baptism: Overwhelmed by Christ's Love</a> This link takes you to the first article. You can navigate to the next two from that.<br />
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Or, you can go to the main page of the <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">blog</a> & read down.<br />
<br />Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-19677314506037093372013-10-09T13:15:00.002-07:002013-10-09T13:15:44.075-07:00Mimetic desire and truthTruth and mendacity are two important concerns in Girard's mimetic theory, particularly when it comes to the sacrificial mechanism that in ancient times only worked when the truth of the victim was not known. I have completed a five-part series called "<a href="http://bit.ly/18hPtEe" target="_blank">Mimetic Desire and Truth</a>" that explores some of the basic ways that mimetic desire can be constructive and help us discern the truth, not as individuals but as a society but also ways that rivalrous desire obscures the truth. You can get a page with links to each post on the above link or you can go to the<a href="http://bit.ly/1ayWl3i" target="_blank"> first pos</a>t and continue on from there.<br />
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Among other posts is a look at the Salem Witch Trials, a Girardian scenario if there ever was one, through the point of view of a judge who repented of his judgments in <a href="http://bit.ly/146Dlar" target="_blank">Bewitched, Bothered, and Repentant</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1fWlwLe" target="_blank">The Communal Good Shepherd</a> looks at the Parable of the Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep. <a href="http://bit.ly/17SPv5Q" target="_blank">The Good Shepherd in the Desert</a> looks back to the desert journey of the Israelites with the help of a Christological take.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1bHPRk0" target="_blank">Cast out by the Outcasts</a> looks at the dynamics of the Ten Lepers who were healed by Jesus and what helps and what hinders gratitude.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-90993389901921657772013-08-24T11:20:00.000-07:002013-08-24T11:20:26.699-07:00Mary & Mimetic Desire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Those of you who attended the first T&P meeting in Chicago might remember that I presented a paper called <a href="http://bit.ly/17HY0hT" target="_blank">Living by the Breath of God</a>. This was and is something of a manifesto for developing Christian spirituality with an in the truth of mimetic desire. I decided to post this paper on my blog for those who wish to review it or read it for the first time. In retrospect, I see that it has set the direction for my continuing thoughts over the past years.<br />
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The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin was on August 15 and I posted my reflections on Our Lady and the tradition of the Assumption in <a href="http://bit.ly/17LPVHO" target="_blank">Mary's Blessedness, Everybody's Blessednes</a>s. In this article, I refer to Drasko Dizdar's magnificent book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/684217285" target="_blank">Sheer Grace</a> which I strongly recommend for a deep Girardian exploration of the Eucharist and the Church Year.<br />
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Two days later, I got to preach on Jesus' hard saying about bringing a sword (or Division) instead of Peace. This from the Prince of Peace of all people" This raises the question whose sword he was talking about which I discuss in <a href="http://bit.ly/16hM878" target="_blank">Human Swords, God's Peace</a>.<br />
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Since I have now posted quite a few articles on mimetic desire, and since the concept is unfamiliar to many, I have had to constantly add cross-references, I have put all these articles together on a page called <a href="http://bit.ly/1avjTWR" target="_blank">Mimetic Desire and Mimetic Rivalry</a> that will expand with new entries. This will be handy for a review or to help any newbie get oriented as to what this is all about.<br />
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Speaking of mimetic desire, I have just started what I expect to be a series of posts called Mimetic Desire and Truth. The first post in the series is available <a href="http://bit.ly/1ayWl3i" target="_blank">here</a>. Stay tuned for more!<br />
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The main page of the blog for those who wish to go there is <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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The more I explore mimetic desire and the more implications I see for its applicability for the Christian life and the human life in this time that continues to become more turbulent, the more important I think it is to spread the word about it through our own reflections and making the reflections of our friends and colleagues known to others. I know that time is finite for all of us, but telling people we know when we have a chance, sharing links on Facebook & sending tweets and retweets on Twitter can all help spread the word.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-56437816811454286582013-08-03T11:55:00.001-07:002013-08-03T11:55:30.071-07:00Transfigured Mirror Neurons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I start with Mary & Martha who were featured in the Gospel reading a couple of weeks ago. My reflections are posted in <a href="http://bit.ly/15jlzN5" target="_blank">Mary and Martha at the Feet of Jesus</a>.<br />
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Then I finally got around to writing a post briefly introducing mirror neurons for those who haven't heard the rumors from the scientific world about them in <a href="http://bit.ly/18DAQhN" target="_blank">Mirroring Desire</a>s.<br />
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Some follow-up reflections exploring a few more ramifications of mimetic desire are posted in <a href="http://bit.ly/13wazdu" target="_blank">Connecting our Desires</a>.<br />
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With the Feast of the Transfiguration coming up Tuesday August 6, I posted these thoughts in <a href="http://bit.ly/13aucb7" target="_blank">Transfiguration of the Material World</a>.<br />
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If you want, you can go straight to the main page of <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a>.<br />
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Ever wanted to have Christmas in July? Well, here is a chance. Thanks to a friend of the abbey, we have just posted an eBook version of my collection of Christmas stories called <a href="http://bit.ly/12BleZU" target="_blank">Born in the Darkest Time of Year</a>. Kindle & Nook formats are available for $4.00 per copy. (my publisher hasn't bothered to do these formats.) You can order paperback hard copy of any of my books from the <a href="http://bit.ly/145Y3q1" target="_blank">Abbey's website</a>. PayPal is accepted. If you don't have an account with PayPal & don't want to make one, you can check out just using a credit card.<br />
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<br />Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-42277283755170531502013-07-08T16:03:00.001-07:002013-07-08T16:03:25.522-07:00Mimetic Desert Monastics, Apostles, & Other Creatures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Tomorrow, I start out for this year's COV&R Conference at Cedar Falls, IA. For those who are going, and I hope there are many of you, be sure to be there in time for the panel discussion of Wolfgang Palaver's new book <i>René Girard's Mimetic Theory</i> as it will be discussed by a MOST distinguished panel.<br />
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It has been a while since I gave you an update on my blog <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a> so I have some updating to do.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/10qphqt" target="_blank">Dispossessing a Town Possessed</a> is based on a sermon on this most Girardian of NT texts.<br />
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I didn't preach for Saints Peter & Paul but I re-worked an earlier article on the feast called <a href="http://bit.ly/121yMHV" target="_blank">Peter & Paul: The Church's Quest for Mimetic Unity</a><br />
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Being a native-born US citizen, I thought I would share a few thoughts on our national holiday called <a href="http://bit.ly/14oJyew" target="_blank">On Being Interdependent on Independence Day</a>.<br />
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This brings me back to the COV&R conference coming up. I will be presenting a paper <a href="http://bit.ly/17ZDmys" target="_blank">Desert Monastics as Hidden Models</a>. Those of you who are coming can hear it live & discuss it. For those who aren't coming or are going to one of many other good presentations can read it on my blog.<br />
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St. Benedict's day is coming up. I will miss being at the abbey, but it turns out that James Alison is celebrating the anniversary of his ordination on the day & I will be preaching. My sermon is <a href="http://bit.ly/1aTs0fL" target="_blank">An Extraordinarily Ordinary Saint</a>.<br />
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On a sadder note, I will pass on the news for those who may not have heard: Bob Hammerton-Kelly suffered a severe stroke last week. Yesterday, when it became clear he wasn't coming back, the family took him off to life support and played a Mozart aria while he passed on.<br />
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Hope to see you in Iowa.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-17123868907526056502013-06-10T12:46:00.001-07:002013-06-10T12:46:32.211-07:00Racism & Contemplation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How do racism and contemplation mix? The answer is that they don't mix very well. Taking time to be with God in a contemplative way should open our hearts to all people of all races.<br />
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I have posted on my blog <a href="http://visions%20of%20true%20peac/" target="_blank">Imaginary Visions of True Peace</a> my own comments on the 2013 Theology & Peace Conference in <a href="http://bit.ly/129FkZE" target="_blank">Recovering Racists</a><br />
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An earlier post called <a href="http://bit.ly/15ct3BH" target="_blank">Will and Desire</a> offers a contemplative thought.<br />
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Another blog post called <a href="http://bit.ly/10PYXku" target="_blank">Unwinding the Judgment of Solomon</a> comments on the first two novels in a series in progress of great significance for mimetic theory as the author Neal Shusterman paints a harrowing dystopia of a severely sacrificial society, a future American we pray will not happen.<br />
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Back to contemplation: starting today, the abbey has now made available an e-book version of "The Indwelling God,"an introduction to contemplative prayer. I have distributed some hard copies of this pamphlet but those of you who prefer an electronic version can get it in that form for $1.00. Coupled with this essay is the article "Resting in God's Desire" that makes a good companion piece as it brings in mimetic desire and how contemplation can help us live constructively with it. This e-book is available on the <a href="http://bit.ly/12BleZU" target="_blank">abbey's website</a>. PayPal is accepted.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-62075902439792249932013-06-08T12:36:00.004-07:002013-06-13T05:47:39.610-07:00Theology & Peace 2013: Platonic Soul or Black Body?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>The 2013 Theology & Peace conference, "Lynching, Scapegoating and Actual Innocence," just concluded in
Chapel Hill N.C. Our reflections were led by two black theologians and one
white. It was a life-changing experience for the racially mixed group which attended. Here is a first response after our return.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ah, dear God, no! Suddenly those images appear in my head. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Drifting into view between moments of sleep and awaking. Not
a dream but a daylight nightmare. Hateful historical postcards from the
heartland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ah, my white soul, my massacring white soul. Where can I go
to get away from you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the old spiritualized, immaterial, Greek sense that soul of
course is colorless. But as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kelly-Brown-Douglas/e/B001K8MQVM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1">Kelly Douglas Brown</a> showed us so convincingly
this theory actually became a cover story, a philosophical fiction playing out in the real world with terrible consequences of white privilege and violence. The Greek soul belongs to a
heavenly, higher, perfect realm of “light”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
white body bespeaks something closer, “nearer” to this heavenly space. While
something black, the color of the earth, must be lower, inferior, perhaps not
even having a soul at all, just a body. A black body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ah, my platonized Christianity, what horror!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Up there, as <a href="http://religiousstudies.uncc.edu/julia-marie-robinson">Julia Robinson</a> showed us in so many mind-rending
slides, swinging between the bright sky and the dark earth is the black body, beaten, tortured, monstrous, surrounded by a host of onlookers, white in their
white-souled innocence. A holocaust offering of sheer meat for a platonic god
who is also a sacrifice-demanding wrathful deity. For, after all, this god
needed the death of his very own son as a displacement for universal divine wrath, so why not
demand the death of these expendable black bodies for instances of human wrath? It was ever the one and same cultural frame. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Meanwhile,</span> all
the other black bodies know in their hearts and memories it could have been
them as the selected victim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh, body and soul, where will we go to find freedom?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Where indeed! Black theology allied to Girardian theory shows
us that the God of Jesus has always been with the black body suspended
lynched and crucified on a tree. That’s the point, and it always was the point, and now the whole
post-platonic community of Jesus is beginning to understand this, white and black. White because Jesus reveals the victim and undoes all the
violence fastened upon him or her, and now the meaning of Christianity is not to get to an
ethereal otherworld, but to transform the violent material existence of this
one. Black because as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Lynching-Tree-ebook/dp/B005M1ZIGI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370717232&sr=1-1&keywords=cross+and+lynching+tree">James Cone</a> wrote “’Calvary’…was (always) redemption from
the terror of the lynching tree.” “Oh see my Jesus hanging high” Black
Christians sang, and they knew that Jesus’ death already transformed their body
terrors, and by extension those of all other human victims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lynchings are now faith, in the strange paradoxical,
subversive language of the gospel, and they are faith for black and white
alike. They are a faith which leaps beyond the dangling monster on the tree
into a radical future of life. Because Jesus was the first monster: for the
temple authorities—“He has blasphemed”; for the emperor—“There is no king but
Caesar”; for the ungovernable crowd—“Crucify him!” But for the God who raised
him from the dead he was the beloved Servant and Lord of creation, of a new creation
without violence, without victims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Black body knew this truth, despite Anselm, despite
Calvin, and before Girard. This for me was the great discovery of our
conference. From now on Theology & Peace cannot go forward without the
active participation and leadership of people of color. (This was
already evident in the splendid election of Julia Robinson to our board!) The
black body experience has become an icon and pathway for the transformative post-platonic
Christian faith that we long to build.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tony Bartlett<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Tony Bartletthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05817563574561933793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-34694986772721706442013-05-29T19:17:00.001-07:002013-05-29T19:25:50.862-07:00Made In God's Image<title></title>
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<b>How Can We Come From Violent Origins if We're Made in the Image of the Nonviolent God? </b><br />
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Grace and peace, dear readers. My name is Lindsey Lopez, and I'd like to thank Dr. Anthony Bartlett of Theology and Peace for letting me guest post on this blog. <br />
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As a Christian pacifist, I find Rene Girard's anthropology to be a crucial key to my Biblical hermeneutic. Before encountering Girard, reconciling the violence of scripture with my conviction that God is Love was a difficult, painful task that shook my faith and left me feeling dishonest. Did I have a right to circumvent the nastier parts of Scripture in order to hang on to what was beautiful? Could I affirm some of it without affirming it all? Was I being a bad Christian to downplay the violence? But how could I be true to myself and my core convictions if I gave the violent passage of scripture equal value with the loving ones? Girard's anthropology, exposing the depths of human violence and identifying violence itself as the foundation of human civilization, and further showing how the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ exposes and breaks down these structures of violence, was a Godsend. It allowed me to better understand the violence of scripture when I realized that the original human understanding of the divine was born through violence. The violence of scripture reflects the early human understanding of God. While it shows the story of a people who put their faith in the violence of God toward others, the Bible also shows the slow weaning away from violence of this same people, first through the Hebrew Scriptures and ultimately through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Girard provied with me to have a model for understanding the narrative of Scripture as a trajectory of human evolution from violent toward nonviolent as it grows in relationship with God. To be able to understand salvation not as a means of escape from God's wrath but as a means of transformation out of our violent selves into the peace and love of Christ has made me a more faithful and enthusiastic believer and disciple. And yet, as I bound my theology together with this anthropology, something still didn't fit. <br />
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Girardian anthropology posits that the definitive moment for human evolution, that marked the transition from the animal to human, was a murder, and hat from that murder and the refusal to see it for the violence that it was came human civilization. (For a succinct explanation of how the founding murder came about and how civilization and religion were based upon it, I recommend James G. Williams' intro to Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.) And as I said, this anthropology appeals to me because it explains how steeped we are in violence, while Girard's analysis of the passion and resurrection of Christ shows howhrist leads us out of this violence. But reconciling humanity's violent origins with the nonviolence of God led me to a paradox. I wondered, “If humans are made in the image of God, and God is absolutely nonviolent, what does it mean that the defining act of human consciousness was an act of violence?” <br />
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I think this concern came about subconsciously because I was trying too hard to reconcile evolution with Genesis. Even though I understand that humans evolved from other primates who evolved from more primitive life forms, part of me still pictures humanity beginning in a celestial garden as a single pair made in the perfect image of God.The language of the “fall” implies a state of perfection or innocence from which we descended, and that image jars with the picture of distinctively human consciousness evolving from a murder. <br />
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It finally struck me, as I was listening to the Beyond the Box podcast of Virtually Christian with Dr. Anthony Bartlett, that my thinking was entirely backwards! Being made in God's image need not mean being made perfect before falling and being redeemed. Virtually Christian, which explains how humanity is continuing to evolve in heart and mind from our violent natures into the peace of Christ, and also The Joy of Being Wrong by James Alison, which explains how we cannot understand original sin except retrospectively from the vantage point of seeing the mess we are coming out of in the light of Jesus, helped me reach this understanding. There was no pristine humanity before Jesus from which we “fell”; rather, we are created to “rise” to Jesus. We are created with the potential to form and understand meaning and to be transformed by the meaning of Jesus. In fact, if Girard says that human consciousness was formed by an act of violence, but the absolutely nonviolent Jesus is the truly human one, then we're not done evolving... we're not fully human yet... we're still in the process of becoming, being transformed. We're evolving because of Christ into his body. This is how God is forming us in God's own image, and God's not finished with us yet... In the light of Christ we look back at all the violence we were and are still involved in and see that we are sinners, but we can only see this because we're on the way out. <br />
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As I think about it, I realize that this perspective actually does help me reconcile scripture with evolution. There is so much in the creation story of Genesis that aligns with Girardian anthropology, if I don't get caught up with the little hiccup of the idea of Adam and Eve being formed with fully human bodies out of dust. It's a story of rivalristic desire suggested into the human consciousness by a third party. Eve is tempted by the serpent to try to become more “like God;” Adam then takes a cue from Eve, and this creates a foundation of distrust and acquisitive desire that seeps into Cain when he murders his brother in a jealous rage. In pre-scientific terms, Genesis illustrates the fundamental human condition of mimetic rivalry. Furthermore, scripture itself illuminates an evolution, not of the body but of the heart. We can trace the trajectory of our addiction to and entrapment within violence from Cain's murder of Abel to Lamach's 70-fold vengeance and beyond, but then we see God slowly reshaping the heart toward peace, through the sparing of Isaac to the prophets and finally to the passion of Christ and the nonviolent church that followed. Evidence of physical evolution can be upheld, rather than contradicted, by scripture if we see through the trajectory of the story that God molds not only bodies but also hearts and minds over an enormous period of time. Lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10521729578809475204noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007043322224185607.post-2965165602590383202013-05-21T12:25:00.002-07:002013-05-21T12:30:12.580-07:00Ascension through Pentecost to the Trinity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgRAu1Wlp9efeaZZkSOxdKd8n4pNPlVXtJ5ioC3O2YowQIXkE-JBMZ57qEEBLwjCKi2gW6mHzPlUcwoBMVMJptYxeHo7o8qynrgo-_9_ymYkyg3bduaNY7Xfg11zmc_eAPsHSf1ohzI4/s1600/churchDistanceBlossoms+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgRAu1Wlp9efeaZZkSOxdKd8n4pNPlVXtJ5ioC3O2YowQIXkE-JBMZ57qEEBLwjCKi2gW6mHzPlUcwoBMVMJptYxeHo7o8qynrgo-_9_ymYkyg3bduaNY7Xfg11zmc_eAPsHSf1ohzI4/s320/churchDistanceBlossoms+-+Copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I have now come to the end of blogging for the extraordinary times of year until next Advent.<br />
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For the Ascension, a tough feast to understand but a joyous one, See <a href="http://bit.ly/11crFBR" target="_blank">Jesus' Escape to the Kingdom</a> where I speculate on why Jesus was ready to make a getaway.<br />
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For Pentecost, celebrate <a href="http://bit.ly/14kQLeF" target="_blank">The Holy Spirit's Fiery Desire</a><br />
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Then there's the Trinity. I suppose one could try to do the math. My suggestion along those lines is to think of the Trinity as an infinite number set comprised of three infinite number sets. Don't think that would work in the pulpit? Try telling the story of <a href="http://bit.ly/13IhIdA" target="_blank">The Eternal Round Dance</a>.<br />
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Going back a couple of weeks, I published the paper called <a href="http://bit.ly/ZYhhdz" target="_blank">Mimetic Hospitality</a> that I read at the Hospitality Initiative in Oakland, MI on May 4. I used mimetic theory to suggest that there is a deeper problem behind our fear of the Other. Charles Mabee was the convener. Sandor Goodhart also spoke at the meeting.<br />
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When I am preaching (every fourth Sunday or so & some festivals) I am posting the basic thrust of my sermon. If you want to get these posts before the preaching date or just wish to keep up with my posts as they come out, you can follow on Facebook, email, or Twitter.<br />
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If you wish, you can go to the <a href="http://bit.ly/Tqbeqw" target="_blank">Main page/Archive</a>.& read down the page.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15615971573301964866noreply@blogger.com0