Category: Uncategorized
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Silence Would Be Better
Even when I ride the train home, or to work, a perfect time to be silent I am often anxious to break out the newest book I am reading (East of Eden currently) or pop in the ol’ earbuds and listen to some tunes.When I am home, silence is most fleeting.It is so easy to be distracted by everything, and this is why the spiritual life – or life flowing from the Spirit – is so difficult to grasp…. But don’t let me leave this store with nothing.”And this is my biggest fear with silence, that it will all come up empty.I wonder how busy people ever make time to just sit and listen to the Spirit of Christ.
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Who Goes There? or Knowing the Betrayer…
I can’t imagine what brings people to come to the point where they strip the innocence of powerless individuals.We must tread carefully on such subjects, for those who are victims forever struggle to regain a self-identity apart from the violating act – and many of those who are victims lay outside our own empathetically solidarity.But we must move away from using dehumanizing terms for one another – terms that tie us to devilish deeds, terrorists, pedophiles, kidnappers, murders, etc. It is when we use these terms that we distinguish us from the other and once we have made those who we fear “the other” than we can dismiss them as human – they become non-redeemable, persons barely human and to be feared.Fear – something that the world is full of, is ultimately existence apart from trust…. And this is it, there is no hard fast solution to these problems, no scan-tron sheet, or standardized test that will fix the world’s problems – if we are to follow Christ we are going to have to get our hands dirty.-a final note- we can only hope to help heal the victim or/and the victimizer if we are first willing to hear the truth from these people – that is we must be willing to hear their own pains and struggles, and then we must be willing to be committed to their healing.
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East of Eden
I’ve been reading East of Eden, the last week and cannot seem to get enough of the book. I began reading it because of the urging of both my boss (Jim) and my wife (Emily) who have reminded of the need to read stories and not just theology. They are of course right, and I am glad to be taking their advice.The Characters in the book are quite astounding, and for those who have read it I kind of relate to Adam Trask at some level. I think his father Cyrus Trask reminds me of my step-father a bit to. A man obssessed with military power and protection, a man who from the beginning was always forming and prunning us to turn out a certain shape and form. I wonder what he thinks of me now, not whether he is proud or not, I think he’d be proud (to some degree). But I believe in and live my life so vastly different from himself that I can’t help but wonder what he’d say to all that.
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Reading List From My First Year at Fuller
I went through and typed out all those book this year that have been most influential in my schooling. It was good for me to do this because I actually had the opportunity to realize that I did learn something this year! Philosophy: Brown, Warren; Murphy, Nancy; Malony, H. Newton eds Whatever Happended to the […]