Refractions and Reflections

This Lent I am trying to read the Lectio Divina every day. The lectionary reading from March 7 (the first Friday of Lent) was from Isaiah 58:1-9; Psalm 51; and Matthew 9:14-15. I also discovered (just yesterday) how to pray the rosary, so I am looking at the Mysteries each day, too. So I finished reading the above Scriptures and pondering how fasting is a spiritual act not because it in itself is so very holy, but because it serves as intercession for the oppressed, and for God's "will to be done on earth as it is in heaven," and then clicked over to read through the Sorrowful Mysteries. The first one caught my attention: The First Sorrowful Mystery THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN Jesus comes with his disciples to Gethsemani: "Stay here, while I go yonder and pray." Entering the garden with Peter, James, and John, Jesus prays, "My soul is sorrowful unto death." Jesus sees the sins of all mankind, whose guilt He has taken upon Himself. He sees the w...

So...this post will be quite different from the one I wrote earlier this week. But now it's back to life. I made my big announcement; I posted some alternative views of Scriptures having to do with it. Now I'm just going back to being me, thinking about the things I think about, doing the things I do, and trying to understand life and God better. And this week, Lent starts. I just realized it a little while ago. So I looked up some mass times at a local Catholic church on Wednesday (might as well kick it off right) and put some thought into how I might observe it this year. I'm not Catholic, so I've never observed it very strictly. But I learn a little more about it and what it means each year, and each year I try to do something for it. This year I'm going to try a little harder. I'm going to take something up. Besides looking at the daily Lectio Divina readings on my Android app, I am also going to make it a point to intentionally clean something every day...

I "came out" on Facebook this week. Having been a preacher, and having come from a fundamentalist Christian background, I pretty much got the scripture-laden response I expected. While I in no way asked for people to inform me of the Bible's stance on homosexuality, many of course took it upon themselves to do so anyway (including a few who, I would bet, have never actually opened a Bible themselves). Let me state this clearly: I am very aware of what the Bible says about homosexuality. My understanding of God and the literal/nonliteral nature of biblical texts has undergone a drastic change in the last couple of years, including my views on homosexuality and whether or not it is a sin. (Here is a post I wrote a while back about literal interpretation and biblical inspiration/inerrancy.) Though most of the people I know will accuse me (and have accused me) of trying to "twist the Scriptures in order to justify my sinful lifestyle," I have never intentionally tr...

---1--- I skipped Quick Takes the last few weeks, due to general busyness ( and not feeling like posting, I guess)...so I'll begin by getting you all caught up and tell you now about my New Year's Eve. I grabbed a friend and went downtown for a little while. My city sponsored an event at various venues for a single $8 ticket. We caught a couple songs by a big band, then saw a stand-up comedy routine by the Skinny Improv. They would ask audience members for suggestions for the scenes. At one point they asked, "What is the most unexpected thing you've ever found?" A little girl chimes up, "A green-necked snake in my back yard!" The guy goes, "Oh, wow - you just knew what it was when you saw it? A green-necked snake?" She answered, "Yeah. I'm a horticologist."   After the comedy we walked over to the library where they were having a poetry slam. Apparently they have one here in town every month. I plan to go check it out at...

I know. The one-hundred-twenty-dollar jeans and the Name-brand, form-fitting shirt and the Sparkly, hangy-down things from the cute little crocheted hat... All that stuff draws attention to itself. The Birkin bag and shiny, high-heeled crocs Serve as tempting distractions, Drawing the eyes and the Mind away from what the bling disguises, What the make-up hides, What the glitter and highlights transform into an Icon: The image we all strive to attain. But try to see past all that. Because underneath the grimy Filter of fashion and Caked-on cosmetics lies a Person, just like you and me, with Feelings, and family, and Purpose. Beauty is only skin-deep. It fades. But once the pesky prettiness is Washed away, what Remains is precious.

I've been reading the book Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber . My phone says I'm on 144 of 206, so I plan to finish it tonight, but I had to stop a few pages back and write out some thoughts. On page 139 Nadia is talking about Matthew 3:17 - 4:1, where God names Jesus "Son" and "Beloved" and then immediately Jesus is tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and she says, "Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are. And maybe, just moments after Jesus' baptism, when the devil says to him, 'If you are the Son of God...' he does so because he knows that Jesus is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that he is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.   "So if God's first move is to give us our identity, then the devil's first move is to throw that identity into question. Identity is like the tip of a spool of thread, which when pulled, can unwind the ...

---1--- A Facebook friend posted this video this week. It's pretty brief, do watch it! Earlier that same day, I had been playing with my puppy, and while I was pondering his sweet and playful personality, I thought of cows and other animals that are raised primarily for food, and wondered how their personalities might "magically" develop if someone were paying attention. A year or so ago I debated with a friend who argued that animals are just as sentient and "soulful" as humans (I argued that humans have souls/are capable of relationship with God and animals do/are not). Since then I have come to have a little different view of nonhuman life. I still believe humans were created in the image of God, and as such, their lives take precedence over the lives of animals. But I think I consider animal life more precious than I used to. We share a world with them; our bodies operate the same way theirs do; and really, they do a lot for us. I'm not to the...