luminousfire

[luminousfire]

Yes I was off my mood stabilizer for a few days.

Yes I have a fever.

Yes I just sent my state rep an unhinged letter talking about how his riches will rust and his clothes will be moth-eaten, that he and his party will go the way of Babylon, that he stands in the way of the brotherhood of man and has blood on his hands, that God rests in the heart or the workers and not in the unhallowed halls of Capitol Hill, that he mistreats the foreigner in our land, worships at the altar of the free market, that, try as he might, he will never shove the camel through the eye of the needle, that he eschews the commandment to steward the Earth, that though the people may weep today, our portion is laughter.

[luminousfire]

Waiting worship and 4'33"

I have this nagging feeling that waiting worship is not silent worship, as it is sometimes referred to. It is ambient. By this, I mean that is akin to 4'33".

John Cage's 4'33" has often been viewed as just silence. Cage's intent with 4'33", as far as I am aware, is to demonstrate the potential musicality of any and all sound.

I view waiting worship in the same way. I am listening to the music of creation. I am listening to God. I am listening to my Friends when they deliver vocal ministry. The sound of a passing fire truck or a cough are a part of the hymn that is waiting worship. In this way, waiting worship is a sort of musical improvisation.

In the case of my meeting, we engage in waiting worship for the first hour. I suppose my meeting performs 60' every week.

NB I'm no musicologist. I would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable of the subject if they have anything to say about this.

#progressive christianity #progressive christian #quakerism #quaker #christian #music #religious society of friends #quakers

[luminousfire]

[ID: Three scraps of fabric with red outlined text embroidered onto them. The first one is a pale orange fabric whose text reads “you’re safe”. The second one is a pink fabric whose text reads “you’re forgiven”. The third one is a white fabric whose text reads “you’re holy”.]

[luminousfire]

Please tell me how I can talk to God. I try praying but I don't "feel" anything. Am I doing it wrong? What do I need to do?

have you tried not talking but listening? this god, too, would like to feel heard

#quaker moment #i’m listenin all the time

[luminousfire]

A God who came near and died for love is a God in solidarity with all those who suffer and are oppressed. This is a God who is incarnate in our hands and hearts. The birth of Jesus is a reminder that God is present in our fragility and solidarity and love. We must carry this candle through the dark.

[luminousfire]

The crucifixion didn’t put an end to suffering; what it meant is that God entered into suffering. He is a God of wounds. “No one escapes this life unmarked by suffering. We are broken people who live on a broken planet, and grief is part of the price we pay,” the author Philip Yancey has written. Last year I asked Philip, a follower of Jesus, why he thought God allows suffering, especially for the young and the innocent. He told me, “I don’t know why God allows for suffering. All I know is that God is on the side of the sufferer.” I don’t believe there’s a satisfactory answer to the questions posed by Ivan, and Dostoyevsky, to his credit, doesn’t try to provide one. The problem of evil, for him, has no cut-and-dry solution. The Brothers Karamazov doesn’t give us a solution to suffering but a different way to look at it, and a way of life we can choose to take in response: active, incarnational love. A kiss is all we have for now. But a kiss is enough for now.

Peter Wehner, "Why Does God Allow the Innocent to Suffer?"

[luminousfire]

[luminousfire]

Started reading David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved.

It’s really impactful so far. I love you universalism.

[luminousfire]

Munther Isaac's Christmas message from Bethlehem. It's in English so there's no mistaking who needs to hear it. Please don't ignore it.

"We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians. Although this is, by far, maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time, but we will be OK. But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won't make a difference, and I know these words of shock are coming, and I know people will give generously for charity, but your words won't make a difference. Words of regret won't suffice for you. And let me say it; we will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look in the mirror, and ask: Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?"

[luminousfire]

[luminousfire]

I do believe that the only hell that could possibly exist is the one of which those Christian contemplatives speak: the hatred within each of us that turns the love of others--of God and neighbor--into torment. A hardened heart is already its own punishment; the refusal to love or be loved makes the love of others--or even just their presence--a source of suffering.

David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation

[luminousfire]

many people called by the biblical god try to end their own lives. one succeeds. god stops calling people. auto-incarnates. tries to end his own life. just to see why

[luminousfire]

"Christ Breaks the Rifle", a 1950 woodcut by Otto Pankok

[luminousfire]

We search for God on this land. Theologically, philosophically, we ask: Where is God when we suffer? How do we explain his silence? But away from philosophy and existential questions. In this land, even God is a victim of oppression, death, the war machine, and colonialism. We see the Son of God on this land crying out the same question on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do you let me be tortured? Crucified? God suffers with the people of this land, sharing the same fate with us. As Mitri Al-Raheb wrote in his article “Theology in the Palestinian Context,” which appeared in an Arabic book I edited: “As for the God of this land, he is not like all the gods... His land is plowed with iron... His temples are destroyed by fire ... His people are trampled underfoot, and He does not move a muscle. The God of this earth is hidden from view. You search for His traces but do not see them. You long for Him to split the heavens and come down to see. To listen, to be compassionate, to be saved. The God of this land does not repel brutal armies, but rather shares one fate with his people. His house is demolished. His son is crucified. But his mystery does not perish. Rather, he rises from the ashes, and with the refugees you see him. He walks, and in the dark of the night he raises springs of hope. Without this God, Palestine remains a scorched land ... it remains a field of destruction. But if God tramples its foundations, he will only make it a holy land, a land in whose hills the good news of peace resounds.” Beloved, in these difficult times let us comfort ourselves with God’s presence amid pain, and even amid death, for Jesus is no stranger to pain, arrest, torture, and death. He walks with us in our pain. God is under the rubble in Gaza. He is with the frightened and the refugees. He is in the operating room. This is our consolation. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

[luminousfire]

Akahige (赤ひげ  -  Red Beard), 1965.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa | Writ. Masato Ide, Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima & Akira Kurosawa | DOP Asakazu Nakai & Takao Saito

[luminousfire]

“Instead of covering the naked, and feeding the hungry, you set out laws to punish them, my heart bleeds to think of the hard usage of my poor fellow creatures who have no abiding…if a poor creature steal a horse, ox, or sheep, he is either put to death or burned in the hand; but you never consider how many horses, oxen or sheep you steal from the Lord…O you great men of the earth, it is along of you that there is so many thieves, for you hold the creation in your hands, and by all means go about to defraud the poor.”

— Benjamin Nicholson, early Quaker

[luminousfire]

Saint Dymphna is my best friend

Yeah I’m a Quaker and we don’t really do saints, but Saint Dymphna came to me in a dream?