what does thanksgiving mean?

Thanksgiving.

Giving thanks.

To who?  What is gratitude if simply sent into the air with no recipient?  Why should I be thankful if I fully believe that everything that has happened to me was either by chance or a product of my own diligence? Am I thanking myself?  Imagine this same scenario but with another concept.  Like love.

I could say, "I am a really loving person."  But, problematically, this isn't true if I am not loving anything.  I could claim to be the most compassionate soul on this desolate planet, but if all I did was sit at home and play Call of Duty, you'd surely call me a liar.

Click to read more »

some interesting quotes about Jesus.

I wanted to do something a little different and share these quotes that I've stumbled upon.  Enjoy.  Oh, and these in no way express my own views, except some of them--

"Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot."

-Bob Dylan 

Click to read more »

Video on knowing God and Christian meditation

Trying out a videoblog!  

Obama and Romney will die, just like the rest of us.

The last traces of fall are slipping away; the leaves have done most of their falling and the orange and yellow glows are greying, preparing our eyes for the white winter.  Okay, enough of the sappy intro.

Lately I've been reading J.I. Packer's Knowing God, and page after page I'm humbled.  Not by Packer, per se, but by the recognition of my own "knowing" of God.  I've long prided myself on knowledge; if you know me, you know this.  I have lots of big, classy looking books; blue and red cloth hardcovers with golden gilt lettering.  Many of these books have tons of incredible information about the world and philosophy and God and language.  My primary interest in all of this is centered around knowing about God.

And that seems noble.

The problem, though, is that key word "about."

Click to read more »

Plato, The Good, And The God.

Deep within the first utopia, Plato's dialogue known in english as The Republic, lies the renowned "allegory of the cave."  In brief, the allegory goes like this:  There are prisoners chained to chairs with their necks and bodies fettered forward, so as to disallow any turning of their vision away from the end wall of the cave they're in.  Far above and behind them is a fire casting shadows on the wall before them--but, of course, they don't know the reality of anything behind them.  Between them and the fire is a raised road with a high wall, which is blocking the shadows of people who pass on the road.  The people are carrying constructed objects--like cardboard cutouts of sheep and boxes and children--putting them above the wall.  The objects cast shadows on the wall before the chained prisoners.

It's like a puppet show.  These shadows are all that the prisoners know.  They have games and honors for the prisoner who can guess which figure will dance next as a shadow across the wall before them.

Plato compares the shadows on the wall to the objects of our imagination...

Click to read more »

sunday encouragement from 1453

One of my favorite quotes.  It was written in 1453 by an Italian Christian, Nicolas Cusanas (1401-1464), in his major philosophical treatise De Visione Dei, "On the Vision of God."  Cusanus is considered the "principle gatekeeper between medieval and modern philosophy" (H. Lawrence Bond).

O Lord, how inclined you are to show your face to all those seeking you.  For you never close your eyes, never turn them elsewhere; and although I turn my self away from you when I direct my attention entirely to something other, yet notwithstanding this, you change neither your eyes nor your gaze.  If you do not look upon me with the eye of grace, I am at fault because I have separated myself from you by turning away toward some other, which I prefer to you.  Yet, even so, you do not turn completely from me, but on the contrary, your mercy follows me so that should I ever wish to turn back to you, I would be capable of grace.  If you do not regard me, it is because I do not regard you but reject and despise you. [...]  Everyone, therefore, who is seeking seeks only the good and everyone who seeks the good and withdraws from you withdraws from that which one is seeking.  (Translated by H. Lawrence Bond)

Death is dead.

Begin with part one of this series here.  Or, read this, and if it happens to interest you then go back to part one later.

The grasshopper-eating vagrant is down by the river again. People are gathered around; some are watching from a distance with folded arms, others are pressing in, water to the ankles, straining to get a closer look.  Some are well dressed, others look as if they've just awoken from a drunken slumber somewhere nearby.  It happens today that a certain young man has joined the interested crowd. Perhaps he's standing next to you and the warmth of his arm on your skin is lessening the shiver.  Then, suddenly, he steps forward to be put into the water, joining the ranks of those who've gone before.  He's placed himself as one of them.

***

Click to read more »