A new angle on the Father of the Prodigal Son

The blog of theologian Maggie Dawn has an interesting post on the Prodigal son parable here. She wonders how it was the son learned to spend money so lavishly in  a culture where the chance of getting spending money without his father's assent was impossible. Who but his father must have if not encouraged him, at least silenty assented to his spending wastefully? How come his Father agreed so freely to give half of his wealth since giving half of his wealth implied that the Father was dead and only the two sons remained. 

 

Something else came to me. How come when all the money was gone the son settled on doing a very dirty job instead of stealing or robbing. Was it that he was shameless (proof of that is easy - he asked for all his money from his living father). Was it this excess of shamelessness in him that encouraged him to think that he could at least have a space as a servant if he returned to his father's house or was it something in the character of his father

 

 

Jesus and GoonFleet

"As one GoonFleet member's online profile declared, "You may be playing EVE Online, but be warned: We are playing Something Awful"

 

This is an excerpt from a fascinating article on a virtual world game that is quite popular - Second life. In this game there are what in the real world we call spoilsports. Reading it reminds me of Jesus last conversation at the judgement seat in Pilate's palace.   How his answers seemed at a tangent to Pilate's questions. The reason for this from what I have read is that Jesus knew that responding in defense of himself and his claims was the "game" Pilate was asking him to play. And there was no way he could do justice in words at that time to helping Pilate understand.

Panting for Unity

"The leader of a community is the guardian of unity. He or she must
thirst for unity and work for it day and night. For this, the leader must
not fear conflict but rather accept it and strive to be an instrument of
reconciliation; the leader must be in contact with all the different
elements in the community, and particularly with those who are in pain or
who are angry with the community. "

- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p. 215

This quote reminds me of my 2 year stint as our church committee member. At
that time I thought the lesson to be learned from the experience was that
one should be humble (to a somewhat ridiculous extent) and patient to get
people to come together on anything. We had a very easy time as a committee
because we were sort of in a holding pattern as a church at that time. I
also felt that I was entitled to respect for all the extra work that I put
in since I was almost press ganged into joining at a time when there was
deep division among the traditional church elders. I certainly developed a
respect for the next committee.

But over the years I have forgotten that because the church has grown
financially and people wise. Vanier reminds me that leadership takes an
enormous toll. There is a somewhat natural tendency in even the most
sincere leaders over time to close their ears to the troublesome elements of
the church. To be open and to renew commitment deep within to hearing and
reconciling discord that is the inevitable product of community is probably
not humanly possible.

Spirit possessed world

The link is a review of the book, "The Master and His Emissary" by Ian McGilchrist.

 

Two short extracts from the article.

 

"... He questions the accepted doctrine that the left hemisphere (Left henceforward) is necessarily dominant, the practical partner, while the right more or less sits around writing poetry. He points out that this "left-hemisphere chauvinism" cannot be correct because it is always Right's business to envisage what is going on as a whole, while Left provides precision on particular issues. Moreover, it is Right that is responsible for surveying the whole scene and channelling incoming data, so it is more directly in touch with the world. This means that Right usually knows what Left is doing, but Left may know nothing about concerns outside its own enclave and may even refuse to admit their existence."

 

".. This notion, which now involves seeing everything natural as an object, inert, senseless and detached from us, arose as part of the dualist vision of a split between body and soul. It was designed to glorify God by removing all competing spiritual forces from the realm of nature."

 

A right use of both people and things must therefore involve some resonance with the spirit of both?

Strange Love

"The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it."

Martin Luther, in the Heildelberg disputation. from the 2nd comment on this post.

This just floored me. At least in regard to falling in love and the creative imperative in marriage that dares to call itself "Christian". !!!

The cry of the smart

"How the world works" alerted me to this story about an economic affairs reporter who inspite of his inside knowledge of the shennanigans on Wall Street just could not find his way out of involvement in not one but three crippling mortgages.

I know this is finger pointing but does'nt it look like a "proof story" for the thing I learnt from the scripture about how the intelligence of men is not a measure of how well they arrange their lives.

Impossible love

.... 'In this is love, that we become pathetic nothings. Forlorn, forsaken, foolish, empty, and pathetic. Only so do we live. In any sense whatsoever. According to the gospel, the pathetic life of love is the only truth, the only way, and the only life."

Halden

Economists and the quest for virtue

A Question for the Economists is a great article in which Harvey Mansfield talks sense about how we often take economic advice without thinking too much about what it means and how this economic crisis is part of that.

Led Zep in the CSI Sunday School

A long time ago when I was a Sunday School teacher, I had to teach something to my kids for the Anniversary program. So I decided to write up a song with the tune I really liked. The song was called, "A Stairway to Heaven" and I did not know who sung it. I loved the tune but did not know or could not figure out the words (this was long before Googling). In any case it reminded me about the vision of Joseph's ladder which he saw while running away from home.

I thought it appropriate to put this vision into words to this tune. Then I played the song to the children but they were not too enthusiatic about the song and about my being able to teach them. So they abandoned it and instead chose a song of their own to present.

Reading this made for a really interesting read of the history of that song.

The story of the Trinity

This is something I have to learn by heart.
At the beginning of the fourth century, there were many models by which Christian theologians attempted to grasp the nature of the interrelations of Father, Son, and Spirit, and to determine to which of the three Persons—and in what manner—it was correct to apply the name “God.” Scripture made it impossible, of course, to deny Christ at least some ascription of divinity, and equally difficult to reject the divinity of the Spirit. But it was by no means clear to all that the three divine Persons should be understood as co-equally, co-eternally, or “co-essentially” one and the same God. Hence, the most appealing, intellectually sophisticated, and plausible fourth-century alternative to what would become Nicene orthodoxy was some variant of “subordinationism.” This was the school of thought (especially well established in the great city of Alexandria) that saw the Son and Spirit as derivative and lesser emanations of the Godhead of the Father—“economically” reduced versions of God mediating between the transcendence of the Father, who dwelt in light inaccessible, and the darkness of the material world.


Quoted from David B. Hart at First Things.

Wendell berry on land and farming

"“We are talking about organic artifacts, organic only by imitation or analogy. Our ability to make such artifacts depends on virtues that are specifically human: accurate memory, observation, insight, imagination, inventiveness, reverence, devotion, fidelity, restraint. Restraint–for us, now–above all: the ability to accept and live within limits; to resist changes that are merely novel or fashionable; to resist greed and pride; to resist the temptation to “solve” problems by ignoring them, accepting them as “trade-offs,” or bequeathing them to posterity. A good solution then, must be in harmony with good character, cultural value, and moral law.”"

Wendell Berry in "The gift of Good Land" (thanks to Geoff Wells)

Updike on Joy

A very nice article from which I stole the quotes below.

It was a Saturday and...

...the men from the sulphur works were getting drunk. From within the double doors of a saloon there welled a poisonous laughter that seemed to distill all the cruelty and blasphemy in the world, and he wondered how such a noise could have a place under the sky of his father's God....

Then Caldwell remembers...

...his father turning and listening in his backwards collar to the laughter from the saloon and then smiling down to his son, "All joy belongs to the Lord."

It was half a joke but the boy took it to heart. All joy belongs to the Lord. Wherever in the faith and confusion and misery, a soul felt joy, there the Lord came and claimed it as his own; into barrooms and brothels and classrooms and alleys slippery with spittle, no matter how dark and scabbed and remote, in China or Africa or Brazil, wherever a moment of joy was felt, there the Lord stole and added to His enduring domain....

The Centaur (New York: Knopf, 1963) p. 296

Toward the end of his career, Karl Barth spoke of "the happy science" of evangelical theology, making it clear that, thanks to the covenant of grace, the first and last and decisive word about human life is this same irrepressible word of joy

...what God wills for us is a helpful, healing and uplifting work, and what God does with us brings peace and joy. Because of this, God is really the God of the euangelion, the Evangel, the Word that is good for man because it is gracious. With its efforts, evangelical theology responds to this gracious Yes.... It is concerned... with Immanuel, God with us! Having this God for its object, it can be nothing else but the most thankful and happy science!

Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (Anchor Books: New York, 1964), pp. 9-11