So I am sitting in my study, I was trying to pray and my mind wandered to how God has blessed me. To others, God's blessings means one thing or another; for me God has blessed me with a mind and a library. I have noticed that I am kind of a nerd. I really like to read. I like outside stuff, I mean that. But, I have taken vacation to do work that most would not consider as vacation activity. So nonetheless, it is true, I am a nerd. I counted books on hand in my library as 230+-, and that is not counting my western novels or about two or three boxes of books that I have here nor the all the books (which is a lot) that I left at my in-laws when I left to do my graduate work. What I think makes this more significant is that . . . I did not graduate from high school, I got my G.E.D.
And now I am in graduate school with a personal reference library of 230+- books (in my own study). Who would have thought!
I came to one other conclusion as well. I met a pastor, who is still dear to my heart, who always had about five books that he was reading and he told me that his biggest problem was not finishing books. I could not figure this out . . . until today, when I have about five books that I am reading at the same time! I am on the same path. Which means that I have to become more disciplined with my reading or I am going to have a lot of books that are unfinished.
Anyways, today was a wierd moment
Showing posts with label randomness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label randomness. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Topics
Oh man have I been neglecting the blog. I have been so busy with work, school and church that I let this go. So I will give some topics that I have been pondering and that God willing, I will address in the future.
I have been thinking about open/closed communion and regarding the reasons for practiciing each.
I have been thinking about the "other" or the "stranger" and when he or she enters the church doors, say an example would be a poor, homeless person: and such aspects concerning this person as what do we do to extend hospitality without extending violence.
I have been pondering theodicy, and some philosophical arguments concerning the real-ness of God. This also includes theology proper, or in other words, the aspects and attributes of God and how we should and do describe them. I also have been thinking of how I would confront the argument of theodicy.
I have been pondering worship and some aspects like the "space" in which we worship.
These are just a few of the more concrete ideas that role in my head. I have many more that are too misty to put in any concrete fashion.
I have been thinking about open/closed communion and regarding the reasons for practiciing each.
I have been thinking about the "other" or the "stranger" and when he or she enters the church doors, say an example would be a poor, homeless person: and such aspects concerning this person as what do we do to extend hospitality without extending violence.
I have been pondering theodicy, and some philosophical arguments concerning the real-ness of God. This also includes theology proper, or in other words, the aspects and attributes of God and how we should and do describe them. I also have been thinking of how I would confront the argument of theodicy.
I have been pondering worship and some aspects like the "space" in which we worship.
These are just a few of the more concrete ideas that role in my head. I have many more that are too misty to put in any concrete fashion.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
a random thought
Here is a quote from a philosopher named Richard Rorty that I pulled out of Stanley Hauerwas' book After Christendom? :
Accommodation and tolerance must stop short of a willingness to work within any vocabulary which one's interlocutor wishes to use, to take seriously any topic which he puts forward for discussion. To take this view is of a piece with dropping the idea that a single moral vocabulary and a single set of moral beliefs are appropriate for every human community everywhere, and to grant that historical developments may lead us to simply drop questions, and the vocabulary in which those questions are posed. Just as Jefferson refused to let the Christian Scriptures set the terms in which to discuss alternative political institutions, so we must either refuse to answer the question "what sort of human being are you hoping to produce?" or at least, must not let our answer to this question dictate our answer to the question "Is justice primary?" It is no more evident that democratic institution are to be measured by the sort of person they create than that they are to be measured against divine commands. . . . Even if the typical character-type of liberal democracies are bland, calculating, petty and unheroic, the prevalence of such people may nevertheless be a reasonable price to pay for political freedom. (pp. 32-33) "Page 78 of Hauerwas"
Do Americans ever think about what kind of people our democracy produces? Or do we start to think that politics is only about the distribution of our taxes towards the municipalities? I believe that I follow Hauerwas in thinking that politics is about producing people, to be brief about it. I also think that George Will was saying this in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does.
What kind of people does our consumer/capitalist liberal democracy produce? Are we bland, calculating, petty and unheroic?
Even more pressing, are "citizens" of the United States, whose very nation is very young and yet obviously not Utopia nor anything near Utopia, whose beginnings could be called "the great experiment" able to again look into the future and gaze at what could be or are they stuck in the idea that it needs to produce as it has?
Accommodation and tolerance must stop short of a willingness to work within any vocabulary which one's interlocutor wishes to use, to take seriously any topic which he puts forward for discussion. To take this view is of a piece with dropping the idea that a single moral vocabulary and a single set of moral beliefs are appropriate for every human community everywhere, and to grant that historical developments may lead us to simply drop questions, and the vocabulary in which those questions are posed. Just as Jefferson refused to let the Christian Scriptures set the terms in which to discuss alternative political institutions, so we must either refuse to answer the question "what sort of human being are you hoping to produce?" or at least, must not let our answer to this question dictate our answer to the question "Is justice primary?" It is no more evident that democratic institution are to be measured by the sort of person they create than that they are to be measured against divine commands. . . . Even if the typical character-type of liberal democracies are bland, calculating, petty and unheroic, the prevalence of such people may nevertheless be a reasonable price to pay for political freedom. (pp. 32-33) "Page 78 of Hauerwas"
Do Americans ever think about what kind of people our democracy produces? Or do we start to think that politics is only about the distribution of our taxes towards the municipalities? I believe that I follow Hauerwas in thinking that politics is about producing people, to be brief about it. I also think that George Will was saying this in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does.
What kind of people does our consumer/capitalist liberal democracy produce? Are we bland, calculating, petty and unheroic?
Even more pressing, are "citizens" of the United States, whose very nation is very young and yet obviously not Utopia nor anything near Utopia, whose beginnings could be called "the great experiment" able to again look into the future and gaze at what could be or are they stuck in the idea that it needs to produce as it has?
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