What I was looking at last night and what I'm thinking with it this morning ...

"We are surely called to believe that God who is everywhere is with us. And we are called to believe that this God is Energy and Love. Not the Grand Inquisitor. Not the Great Circus Master. Not the Indifferent Professor who does distant research on our lives. God is the one who made for us a good world and walks with us to hold us up as we go." 
--Joan Chittister
I didn't know anything about Sister Chittister before reading this quote ... now I see that she is a prolific writer and I guess it's right to say " a bit of a voice" ... not sure what feminist voice means but that's one of the things I've read about her.  I'm looking at just this quote ... and the reason I thought to note it is because it's interesting to me to hear/read what people, believers, have to say about God.  This Sunday our pastor said Jesus is God. God with us.  I don't like to think of God as "energy"  I don't know what that means. It seems funny to me that it's easy to accept the fact that God is mysterious ... a lot is unknown and maybe even unknowable ... I acknowledge that I do not know ... it bothers me to hear God referred to as Energy.  Well ... one word, any word, would be troubling.  Not this or that is easy.  God is ... It amazes me that He invites us to learn. 

"Learn as much as you can from the wise until finally, if you do it right and things break your way, you are wise enough to be yourself, and brave enough to speak with your own voice, and foolish enough, for Christ's sake, to live and serve out of the uniqueness of your own vision of him and out of your own passion." 
--Frederick Buechner

"Frederick Buechner was born in New York City and grew up in Bermuda and North Carolina. He was educated at Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary. After being ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1958, he served for nine years as the school chaplain and religion teacher at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He and his family then moved to Vermont so he could pursue a career as a full-time writer.

Buechner is the author of more than 30 works of fiction and nonfiction. He has a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is especially loved for his devotional writing, including sermons and short meditations on theological terms, biblical characters, and ordinary words with religious dimensions. In his memoirs, he finds signs of God's grace everywhere, especially in his own experiences."

I'm not very comfortable with this quote either.  I do think it's right to be authentically who you are, and people seem to have a difficult time of that. What I liked about this quote was the idea of serving Christ via our uniqueness.  I don't think I get to develop my own "vision" of Him.  "your own"  is troubling for me.  Maybe I just don't understand the intent out of context.  

"Negative capability...is being capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. 
--John Keats

This notion was illustrated well in Kidder's book Mountain's Beyond Mountains when he re-counted the story of a woman's ambiguous beliefs about where her disease "came" from.  "Are you unable to comprehend complexities" ... something like that.  Geez, i wish I could remember precisely!  Now I'll have to go back to look again!

Tell it Slant

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies;
Too bright for mind's infirm intent,
The Truth's superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased,
With explanation kind;
The Truth must dazzle gradually,
Or every man be blind.

~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Here I am thinking of circuits as planetary circuits and I wonder at the circuitous journey that is being human ... L and I are talking about a thing, and those things, which a person has to (?), gets to (?), is called/pulled towards to work out for themselves ... little private "owies" which whether one prefers it or not, are simply one's business with the Maker.  

 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. ~Phillipians 2:12 and 13.

My dad and I talked about this passage (many moons ago)... the conversation was about "working out one's salvation"  ... he wanted to visit about this.  Salvation is a gift from God via Jesus' work ... which we may chose to accept.  That's what I believe. And.  There is a process of working out one's salvation ... maybe as a refining process is a way to grapple with the idea ... I can see some owies, old owies, soul owies in myself (and in the few people I know especially well)... which I seem to circle back to meeting them, tucked away, but suddenly flung about, unavoidable(?) on my path ... my circuit path.  I sit here, watching the birds on my beautiful new (half empty now! they've been so happy to come and dine) and I remember that "broken" horse running in circles ... and he ran and ran until he ran himself down to the place of healing ... how many layers of hoof prints did he lay in the same dust as he circled ... he ran until he was able to confront ... he came to a fresh ... brand new understanding. He worked it out.  It's funny about "owies"  they are like chameleons ... or masqueraders, masked raiders, afraiders, abraders ... it takes several passes to see them for what they really are ... .  And ... well, it's a process.  

 This one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on. 
--Philippians 3:13-14

I am super busy with a lot of important small things lately so I just want to note a few tiny things that I'm thinking about and maybe I can make better notes later ... after the holidays.  The other thing I'm trying to understand is about "sin"  as in ... the idea of something being a sin against ones own body (and from what I have gathered so far, sins against the body seem to be sex sins like adultery ... but even that seems to have a deeper context temple prostitutes (which were probably slaves) and the Temple of God (indwelling in the persons body ... so union with "foreign" entities would be insulting/degrading in a place of worship (the temple) ... I am so out of time this morning!  The main idea is about the (my) body and soul collaborating to help me "work out" who God was thinking of when He thought of me ... I would really like to be "on track" with that!  I'm wondering about some of that stuff.