Ideas-for-Life

My grand plan for Lent this year was to post a poem a day using the Church of England’s #LiveLent reflections as a jumping-off point, but life happened (we lost G and then went into a full COVID-19 related shutdown) and I ended up stuck on 17 days. Poetry as prayer seemed like a good idea given the difficult season of faith I was in, in which prayer felt alien. It is not an entirely novel idea as I found out with more than a few essays reflecting on the subject, two examples being these excellent pieces at Talking Writing and The Millions. There is a rich history of the poetic form in various religious writing and in their associated rites; some might even argue that the enduring allure of the King James Version of the Bible has more to do with the cadence of its words than anything else. Come to think of it, the Psalms sometimes read like the brain dumps of a conflicted person, like transcripts of therapy sessions. ...

Somewhat fortuitously I stumbled on a podcast by Redeemer Presbyterian’s Tim Keller, Four Ways the Gospel Transforms Work. It was one which, by including the subject of work and identity, took me one back to a couple of years ago when I reflected on the subject of being and identity. Tim’s four points - not making work our identity, considering all work dignified because God does it through us, sticking to the moral compass of our worldview and not letting work become our master - provide a detailed ...

They say the good is the enemy of the best or something to that effect. I am learning that this also applies to people. The worst kind of those has to be those who are happy to take one’s time without making any commitments in return. Over the last few days of reflection it has become apparent that I have a number of those (as well as being that sort of friend to some other people also). ...

The quote above had only been posted to a Whatsapp group I’m part of for all of an hour before it set off a firestorm. The bone of contention was Anais Nin’s body of work, (probably rightly) deemed inappropriate for the context in which it was posted (it’s a group filled with the super spiritual folk I serve alongside on my church’s tech and media team). I made a spirited attempt at defending the value of her body of work - risque subject and bohemian lifestyle notwithstanding - a position which left me just short of getting my knuckles rapped. I started typing a lengthy response in the group but did the sensible thing and backed off, taking the time to ponder what I felt was a wider philosophical question: can an artist’s lifestyle be decoupled from their body of work? Or even certain elements of that body work? ...

John Cornwell on the Importance of doubt: Faith, like love, is seldom entirely constant; nor is it irrevocable. More in a similar vein from Mike McHargue

– Trust yourself if you can… HT - Kovie Parker

Short answer we don’t know… It sure does make us feel good about ourselves though…

https://www.ted.com/talks/casey_gerald_the_gospel_of_doubt Fascinating talk, key element of which for me is Casey’s search for meaning and purpose… In the end we all seek a wider, over arching meeting to life I guess, some of us still think we find it within the framework of a Judeo-Christian worldview..

[tweet https://twitter.com/EugeneCho/status/708128160949243904 ] #NoteToSelf

Borrowed @ MindBodyGreen #NoteToSelf