Da Vinci and the Bible (without the Code)
We have a tendency to perceive our view as right, and others’ views as wrong. We are very quick to say, “can you believe the things those people actually think”, when truthfully, our view may be just as off base.
Maybe the majority of views hold elements of truth.
We have no perfect view that captures everything. Some are more reliable than others, and one may appeal to us over another. In all likelihoods they each have some truth to them and by looking at them collectively we may get a more rounded, healthier picture. We have to stay humble, willing to admit that our view may be messed up, and similarly willing to admit that a view that does not appeal to us may hold some truth as well. Neither shunning nor totally embracing everything that comes our way.
The famous Last Super painting by Da Vinci, because of his experimental technique, was falling apart from the time it was painted. As a result it has been retouched, fixed and edited repeatedly over the years. In the latter part of the 20th century it was restored, removing subsequent additions and touch ups made by other artists. This restoration brought the painting closer to its original form than it had been for centuries.
Ironically, many people were upset by this.
They preferred the painting in the way they always knew it. They preferred their IDEA of what the painting was over what the painting actually looked like when originally painted.
They didn’t want authentic, they wanted comfortable, they wanted familiar. We hold onto our view of life in the same way. We want to cling to comfortable and familiar. Sometimes, although we claim to love the ‘original’, we really love our IDEA of what things should be. We think of God in a certain light and we reject any ideas about him that don’t fit our view. We judge people who think differently. We judge people that see the bible in a different light.
Like so many things we need to be willing to throw away our idea of how things are in order to gain a hint of what things really may be.
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I just came across this sentiment in some notes I wrote at a conference/seminar 3 years ago. Somehow it seems just as timely now as it was then.
in a mirror dimly: Reflections on Easter
A good friend of mine, my youth pastor (as a youth) and now an elder at the church I’m in community at just started his own blog. A cyber-home for his very good thoughts.
inamirrordimlynm:
Good Friday is a bit of a buzz-kill. I don’t like to think about death. Most of us don’t I would guess. It’s the inevitable shadow at the end of the tunnel we would like to put off as long as possible and keep as far out of mind as possible.
The original good Friday must have been a…
I can’t speak for my coreligionists, but, personally, I wish they’d break the bad habit of making supposedly authoritative scientific truth claims from the standpoints of theological orthodoxy and devotion to doctrine. The religious mind–which conceives the world in terms of myth, mystery, ritual and wonder–has its own value apart from the rational endeavors of the scientists and the philosophers. The religious mind seeks a unique truth, even when its truth discloses a reality also pursued in other disciplines. Its methods of inquiry and verification are different than those of science and philosophy. Let them dialogue, but let’s not confuse them. Because each has its own truth to offer, religious faith and reason have much to say to one another. In my opinion, we benefit from listening to both and from cultivating a mind informed by both religiosity and reason.
Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish - separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two. Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.
(via invisibleforeigner)
10 things that inspire me.
in·spire/inˈspī(ə)r/: To fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative.
Inspiration is sometimes an elusive, phantom. Other times an ocean to swim in. Either way it comes, it goes, it’s here and there, but it is always needed. When I gathered this list I was in a particularly uninspired mood, floating along in the doldrums but ironically (or perhaps to be expected) the very act of putting together an ‘inspiration list’, was a uniquely inspiring process.
Here it goes…
1. Pinterest!
To start off on a light note - Pinterest is the latest place I go on a frequent basis for immediate inspiration of many kinds. From inspiration for what to make for dinner, ideas to spruce up our house cheaply, gift ideas, design ideas…I love scouring through the visual smorgasbord that pinterest creates.
2. Children being carefree.
(photo by: Adam Taylor)
Seeing children when they are in their glee, cackling at random things, playing (peacefully) is the perfect example, to me, of something that truly inspires life. It’s a reminder that not all things are wrong in the world, that imaginations do run free and joy can be found.
Love your enemies…even if your enemy is a wreckless taxi driver who drives into the side of your car.
When Paul refers to ‘the gospel’, he is not referring to a system of salvation, though of course the gospel implies and contains this, nor even to the good news that there now is a way of salvation open to all, but rather to the proclamation that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead and thereby demonstrated to be both Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord. ‘The gospel’ is not ‘you can be saved, and here’s how’; the gospel, for Paul, is ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’.
…since the word ‘gospel’ was in public use to designate the message that Caesar was the Lord of the whole world, Paul’s message could not escape being confrontative: Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord, and at his name, not that of the Emperor, every knee shall bow.
We, and our opinions and perspectives do not dictate what the Church is now and certainly not what it has been, and the experience of this loss of control is itself salutary. We are not the hub, the spring of significance, the norm of interpretation in the Church, and neither is any other one segment of the body. The Church was clearly blasphemously wrong for the greater part of two millenia on the subject of slavery; many would add that it has been no less wrong for even longer about the status of women. To be ‘catholic’ now means to resist the temptation to blot out and forget this past and the equally powerful temptation to condemn from a superior vantage-point. This kind of catholicity obliges us to recognize the Church’s continuing liability to failure and betrayal … We can only be grateful that even a slave-owning church had just enough sensitivity to the challenge of the gospel for a protest to be generated (however slowly) and a new awareness - of which we are the direct beneficiaries - to come into being. This is a catholicity which may weep over the universal liability to error, yet rejoice at the universal pressure towards truth, penitence, and transformation.
(via simplyanglican)
Parables retold
Matt Mikalatos had a similar upbringing to me (or I to him), having been fully imersed in Christian culture and education from soother to drivers license.
As he says here
One side effect of growing up in Christian culture can be a certain contemptuous familiarity with the Bible. I remember impatiently tapping my feet when we trotted out the Christmas story, begging for it to end so we could tear into the presents. I remember playing “Bible Trivial Pursuit” in sixth grade and thinking to myself, “I know everything there is to know about the Bible, except how to pronounce some of the names.”
And having heard the stories over and over, it’s hard sometimes to really hear things anew. It becomes difficult to get the initial impact that these unusual stories would have had on the original audience - a mottly mix of religious men, widows, children, tax collectors and fishermen all crowded around hearing some man talk about the truths of life not in theological treaties, but in stories. Unexpected stories.
Matt’s retelling of these biblical parable brings back to life the messages that may have got lost somewhere among the flannel picture boards of my youth. Or perhaps the shouting preachers, badly animated tv specials or our preconceived ideas of what Jesus was really on about.
For a fresh look at some very old but powerful stories, have a look. I look forward to reading more from Matt. I really loved these.
Introduction
Part One: The Teacher shares about a trip to the zoo
Part Two: The old woman who almost loses it
Part Three: Frank chases his dreams in Hollywood
Part Four: The lost son
Listen to this again:
Colorblindness has nothing to do with eradicating racism. It is about denying its existence and power.
That is the truth. We are all racists. We’re hardwired to like people who are similar to us, and we’re hardwired to be a little afraid of people who are different from us. It’s part of our makeup. The thing is, though, that we don’t have to let this be all we are. We can choose something better. Believe me: it is a choice. It’s not an easy choice. It’s not a choice we manage to make 100% of the time. But we can choose — we must choose! — to extend respect and dignity to all human beings.
Go support this on Kickstarter and make it happen!
The Kingdom of God is… | Involuntary-Guest-Post
Ever so often I read a blog post, a chapter in a book, a line in a song that makes my heart leap and my soul swell with a resounding YES. This post by Sara at her blog Emerging Mummy is one of those.
Here is an Involuntary-Guest-Post. Read the entire post including the introduction at her blog.
All good and perfect gifts come from the Father. The same Father watching a road for a wayward son, the same Father that gave everything to the older son too. The same Father that cured sin throws the doors open, parties with prostitutes and thieves.
(Photo by joe miller)
Whenever I find myself judging another, may I choose instead to extend love.
Whenever I am given the choice to treat people different from myself with fear, prejudice or contempt, may I choose instead to extend love.
Forgive me for thinking of myself more highly than others, for I do not know anyone’s heart but my own. And indeed, my own heart is in need of repair.
Ash Wednesday - a preparation to rejoice in His love
Today is the beginning of Lent in the West.
I’ve never observed Lent, having grown up in ‘non-denominational’ Christianity. I probably first discovered lent when, at around 11 years old having just entered public school, I arrived one day to the sight of half the other students sporting ashen smudges across their foreheads. At the time, I’m sure I got an 11 year old explanation that I didn’t fully understand, and perhaps a vague mention of it in that mornings assembly.
