conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

wednesday linkage

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging. - St. Francis of Assisi

Once again you have stumbled upon another issue of Wednesday Linkage. I hope that you have been using the RSS feed. Lordy, but you wouldn't want to miss a single issue! Heh. Okay, so there is a lot here to take in. We have conversations about spirituality, social justice, utopianism, news of women in the pulpit (This is news?) and Baptists in Palestine, as well as some introductions to new faculty. So slide up a chair and stay a while!

around the university

Welcome the new faculty!

At St Cyprian Orthodox Seminary: Fr. David Hudgins - Pastor, St Joseph's Chapel
At the Phillips Brooks Episcopal Seminary: Mompriest - Barbara Kingsolver Chair for Midwestern Spirituality and vocal coach.

Engage in some interesting conversation!

Mike Clawson of up/rooted fame hosted Hemant Mehta of I Sold My Soul on E-Bay fame. You can read a good summary here at Conversation at the Edge. Christian and atheists playing well together. Interesting stuff.

Hemant reiterated what Jim and Matt found: he said that not one person came up to him to initiate conversation in all his church visits. If he spoke to people they would talk with him but they didn’t initiate the conversation. One person said “I’ve been in several countries and it’s the same way - do you think that’s human nature?” My problem with that is - I thought followers of Jesus were supposed to do better than let ‘human nature’ determine their behavior. If Jesus was curious and noticed people and gave them attention - which is what I see in the Bible stories about him - shouldn’t his followers be the same way?

Cliff is talking about salvation and the heart. He's taking it out of the realm of experience and emotionality. Interesting stuff.

“Christ Himself revealed to us the method. He told us that not only are we capable of exploring God but we can also live with Him, become one with Him. And the organ by which we can achieve that is neither our senses nor our logic but our hearts.”

Larry shared some thoughts about the recent Jubilee Conference. Go here, here and here. Larry's not much for utopianism.

I believe in the resistance the vigilance and the effect these things can have to better the world, I find it dubious the expectation of the achievement of the ideals I doubt there will be utopia. Of course in part I believe this because I do not believe that what we long for can be achieved by human effort alone. There will be no utopia only the eschaton. Ultimately we can only receive as gift those things of ultimate value we wish to achieve.

Mompriest is still talking about George Herbert and poetry in general.
AKMA posted some great photos to celebrate twenty-five years of marriage.
Dave says not to hire an internet person for your political campaign.
Amy is righly fretting about the upcoming Biennial. I am looking forward to meeting her finally.
And, lastly, the Young Fogey shared this quotation on how to encourage a liberal inquirer to Christianity:

I ... recommend that you get an icon of Mary the Theotokos with Christ as an infant and spend some time before it in quiet meditation on her life and consider your issues in this context. She is the all-pure one and can guide us, who are equal to her in nature, to righteousness and true submission to the will of God.

I hope that you take your time, become an inquirer and enter into the liturgical cycle. Work these things out within the communal context of the body of Christ. Don't be an isolated person that our modern individualist society attempts to unnaturally impose on us!

sermons
Mompriest
Rev Ref+

baptist news

First Baptist, Decatur, calls a woman pastor to its pulpit.
Human beings are not to blame for global warming.

Messengers did not object to the basic claims contained in the global-warming resolution: that global temperatures have risen for decades as Earth emerges from the Little Ice Age, “scientific evidence does not support computer models of catastrophic human-induced global warming,” and major steps to reduce greenhouse gases would unfairly impact the world’s poorest people.

Ruth Graham has passed. Blessed be.
Police seize Baptist church in Gaza.

the video

Put your drink down first.

Posted by tripp at June 20, 2007 06:20 AM