the shack

yesterday, i stayed up until about 1:30am to finish reading a book, given me by my dear friend Carl, called "the shack", by william p. young.  he stipulated that he would only give it to me if i promised to tell him what i thought; so, as there is much to ponder from its really beautiful depiction of god in relationship, with himself and with humans, here is the first response of several to his request.

"In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course.  God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects." pg 66

i was flipping thru' the flair application on facebook today and found a quote from one of my favorite movies, the princess bride: the Sicilian is being pursued by the dread pirate roberts and the pirate is gaining on him, and as the pirate conquers one challenge after the other, he keeps saying one word, "inconceivable!" until finally his partner says "you keep saying that word.  i do not think it means what you think it means."  it struck me that maybe we keep saying a lot of "spiritual" theological words, and they do not mean what we think they mean - words like inspiration, infallibility, predestination, among others - what if in scripture god was trying to express from an infinite mind to a finite one what true relationship was meant to be, and we keep trying to boil that expression down into systems so that we can understand it instead of simply trusting what we do not completely grasp and living in it?  we seem to give lip service to "lean not on your own understanding" and then spend a great deal of time & energy judging "spirituality" & relationship according to our own understanding.

anyway, i haven't reached any conclusions about the above words one way or the other, except that my own understanding, & others', must always be suspect - we see thru' a glass darkly, and if i know for certain what has been a source of mystery for biblical scholars thru' the ages, what need is there to go back to the source to find the answer?  our systems of understanding god and scripture seem to have pushed us further into religion and further from relationship and dependence, which seem to be the point of scripture in the first place?

I love living in the city

right now, i'm sitting on monument circle, watching & listening to the fountain and also an elderly bucket drummer w/ more enthusiasm than skill :) but great fun to watch, especially as he has his granddaughter with him.  i biked down to go to borders for an afternoon of reading - francis chan's crazy love, and andy crouch's culture making: recovering our creative calling.  in the background, the bells are ringing from one of the old churches downtown, the sun is shining, skies are blue, harley guys are riding by on really gorgeous bikes, next to us pseudo-urban types on our bicycles.  A man in a gorgeous MG convertable just drove by w/ a giant costumed camel head in the passenger seat, waving at everyone.  The drummer's wife is sitting at a cafe table drinking coffee as her husband picks up a semi-steady beat and proceeds to yell "we will, we will, ROCK YOU" at random intervals, and i wonder if i will have enough love in me at that point in a marriage to stand proudly by my husband as he does something equally embarrassing, simply because he loves it.  i hope so.

old friends & new ones

Below are pictures from my friends', Aaron & Glori, wedding.  It was such a fun, beautiful, sacred day...even without the mighty wind of His breath, God's joy in that day would have been unmistakable.  Glo, you got your something blue! :)  It rained in the morning, was overcast for photos, and by the time the wedding came around, it was a glorious sunny, "breezy" day!

For the full effect (except the ceremony, which I was in :), here's a link to my album on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128793&l=3a67c&id=870245023