Reflections

5.5.14

– Life is just too long……!

I am bored, restless & tired  😦

But I want to live:

I want to laugh.

I want to love.

I want to grow.

I want to achieve.

I want to understand.

I want to suffer.

I want to work.

– I must stop chasing after new avenues for pleasure/excitement. I should just be still and open to opportunities for enjoyment that naturally come my way…

– Artificial needs & manufactured longings

– Holding what you have loosely (with a readiness to let go), is as important as not being agressive in getting something you don’t have…!

– I seek respite.

I seek relief.

I seek release!

– It seems like the more you study, the less you really know, Joe!

– What could be greater than doing (engaging & achieving) & having (holding & getting)?

– A revolutionary conservatism!

– Distinguish:

Leisure-contemplation

&

Luxury-indulgence

– The nihilism inherent in fundamentalism, & the fundamentalism that results from nihilism!

– Experience & reflection

Faith & practice

Community & dialogue

Passion & work

– Could the work of a janitor be noble & creative?

– Distinguish:

Nothingness-bliss

&

Vacuum-emptiness

– The depth of understanding that comes from breadth of knowledge!

– The contemplative lifestyle IS my mission/vocation!

– Distinguish:

Simplicity

&

Contentment

Root & fruit

– Why is my life so dead? »

HOW have I made it this way? » What is the way forward?

– What is (the nature, meaning & purpose of) marriage?

– What you believe Christian > husband

– Theology, pornography & contemplation.

Discipline, marriage & conversation.

Chores, education & ministry.

– Teach me how to waste time productively……

No junk, no recycling!

– Conscientization ~ orthopathy

– The more people change, the more they remain the same!

– Anarchist ~ libertine

Democrat & libertarian

Socialist & communitarian

– Is it possible to have a good life without physical health, financial resources & social support?

– Teacher-training

– Movies:

August: Osage County

The moment of clarity comes oh so subtly & suddenly!

11.5.14

– On the outs

– Death is supernatural!

– Sappho

– Multifarious

12.5.14

– Post-marxist, post-colonial liberation theology!

– Ecclesial reasonings

– Theological oppression

– Liberationists

– Re-contextualization

– Hermeneutic of suspicion

– Social philosophy

– Phenomenological theology

13.5.14

– Flippancy

– How much pleasure or pain can you take without ex/im-ploding?!

I must increase my capacity. But how??

– Faith & worship

Thought & practice

– The Law:

1. List 3 things that (you believe) GOD requires from you now.

2. List 3 things that you desire now.

3. Identify where they converge or come close. That is the New Commandment!

Use this model for your wedding anniversary reflections…

– Love & lust are 2 poles (overlapping in the middle) in the one spectrum of human relations…

14.5.14

– Should I remove the internet filter at home?

Are there any kids staying here?

– Time to move from defence to offence, Joe!

– The bond between sex, love & marriage is religious-cultural, not bio-psychological. The moral is found at the tensive interface of these 2 levels of human existence!

– Punishment

Vs.

Rehabilitation

– Solidarity through mutuality + reciprocity = relationality!

– Hospitals, social-work, churches, civil society, legal services, etc.

– Did the prophets & apostles know with definite certainty who or what they were actually dealing with, & speaking/writing about??

– In each context (historical, geographical, cultural, political, etc.), the articulation of divine revelation (theology) is done in the language prevalent in, & appropriate to, that particular setting…

– Theo-drama

Vs.

Theo-logic

– Post-metaphysical theology

– Waging peace

– Does what I do derive from (my understanding of) who I am?

Or

Does (my understanding of) who I am depend on what I do?

– Theology, philosophy & ideology

– He/she has some peculiar views & idiosyncratic tendencies that may hurt/harm me, but there is no doubt that he/she loves me i.e. their essential attitude/dominant disposition toward me is one of positive affection & benevolence.

Right?

15.5.14

– Global ethic

– How much stress can a relationship take before it permanently breaks??

– Marriage – if I must become more feminine, then she should also become more masculine…

– Open-ended

– Cutting-edge

– Research readers

– International students

– Editorial advisory board

– Contemporary, critical & contextual

– ‘Incerti’

– Neo-paganism

– Fidelity

Vs.

Authenticity

– “This page intentionally left blank”

– Discursive dichotomies

– “Reality is (only/just?) a state of mind.”

– Can love also include hate?

– Prehistory

– Mirror neurons

Selfish genes

– Opinion leaders

– Forbidden crossings

– Uniqueness & exceptionality » superiority & absolutism!

– Christian paganism & pagan Christianity

– Fictional theology

– Half-Christians in the ancient church!

– Ambiguity, compromise & harmony

– Polemics & propaganda

– Artificial borders

– Heresiologists

– The paranormal & the preternatural

– Intertextuality

– Epigraphy

– Non-Christian personal religious experience

– Salutary

– Pseudoscience

– Preconceptions

– Guilty pleasures

– Movies:

Basic Instinct

Why do I like such nonsense?!  😉

– He who has never lived the way one wants, can never know what it means to be who one ought to be.

No freedom, no realization.

No realization, no formation!

– We need a morality that is rooted in the bio-psychic & a religion/culture that is more apposite to our empirical/existential reality…

– Is piety without prudery possible?

– Festschrift

– Defamiliarize

– Decant

– Aniconicism

– Obloquy

16.5.14

– Feint

– Theology is the outcome of the dynamic & fiesty interaction between religion & philosophy!

– Radically alien

– Deconstruction ~ simulation!

– Interregnum

– Deracinate

– Efflorescence

– Architectonic

– Excrescence

– Unconcealing (metaphysics) » signification (linguistics) » simulation (semiotics)!

– Metonymy

– Viral ~ malignant

– Organism = living system

– Bioenergetics

– Onto- » meta- » trans- !

– Eliptical

– Senescence

– Eudemonics

Vs.

Aretaics

– Femme fatale

– Provocative, incisive & lucid!

– Qualia

– Theology » dialogy » heterology!

– Originary thinking!

17.5.14

– The old bandicoots camp

– Resurrection & ascension: He is NOT up there. He is down here among us, in order to lift us to the right hand of the Father!

– Rhythm:

40% do what I want (desire/spontaneity/pamper myself) + 40% do what I ought (will/structure/ discipline myself) + 20% do nothing (spirit/stillness/ being).

The challenge of categorization/ classification is real!

– Be opportunistic, not driven!

Have: get or hold…

No, no, no! Just relax & enjoy.

– Ministry: whatever you are trying, to make your life/self better, help others to do for themselves also. Ok?

– You cannot improve the quality of your life if you are not ready to change yourself &/or your circumstances…

The New Formula:

50-50!

E.g. Adapt yourself to the given situation

AND

Adjust your environment according to your priorities.

– What does goodness have to do with happiness?

What does happiness have to do with prosperity?

What does health have to do with society?

– Public theology

&

Personal theology

Which one is your emphasis?

– Should I go hard after a perfect body?

– Distinguish:

Isolation-withdrawal

&

Solitude-contemplation

Two sides of the same coin?

– Restlessness – anxiety-lust-violence

– Postmodern philosophy

&

Trinitarian theology

The WOW truth!  🙂

– “There is only one thing to do: create the right climate, and then leave the field.”

– Socrates, Diogenes the Cynic, Jesus Christ, Gautama Siddhartha, Jiddu Krishnamurthi, etc.

– Stop fucking around, Joe!

Either you relax & allow your belly to protrude or do what it takes to get rid of it altogether. Stop sucking it in to make it look smaller…!

Don’t be a coward-hypocrite.

– Founder

– Flounder

– Facticity

– Being IS doing,

Therefore being better is doing more!

– Philosophy as ontology/metaphysics

Vs.

Philosophy as the hermeneutics of facticity

– Negation of negation

Virtual being

Transitional object

– Irruption

– Physis

– The hermeneutic of suspicion

– Recollection ~ nostalgia

Repetition ~ kinesis

– Slave morality

– Political economy

– Cybernetics

– Hardy

Bloody-minded

– Internal time

– Différance

– A fortiori

– Distinguish:

Vacation

&

Retreat

– The discipline of sustained chaos!

18.5.14

– Intuitive theology

– Transcendence without mythology

– Bringing alive the Text & throwing more light on the lived reality.

– From person-work to event-context

– From exclusive-exhaustive to definitive-normative.

– Theology, cosmology & anthropology

– Maybe I am neither a theist nor an atheist, but a deist-agnostic!

– GOD – Creator (above us) » Christ (one of us) » Spirit (among us)!

– Why can’t I just be a thinker, explorer, husband, son, brother, friend, spiritual companion/facilitator?

– The metaxological

19.5.14

– The metaphysical thriller!

– Nihilist (metaphysics) -libertarian (ethics) -anrchist (politics)

– Freedom, chaos & love

– Universal crime

– Divine infinity » total identity!

– Negative concern

– Foreswear

21.5.14

– If salvation (self-realization; spirit-filling; resurrection) entails becoming suicidal (immoral; insane; persecuted), then so be it!

22.5.14

– “One Hundred Years of Solitude”

– The only way to salvation is by undergoing spiritual death & rebirth, while you are physically still alive!

– In order for a revolution to be successful, its pioneer must be killed!

– It is easier to gnash your teeth & endure forever in a miserable existence that you are familiar with, than to boldly take a decisive step that will put a final end to the boring old and usher in the terrifying NEW!

– I have taken decisions (for spiritual reasons) that could have destroyed my social support, financial security & physical comfort (includes psychological welfare). But I have gotten away without paying a heavy price (because of my parents’ unconditional love)! What will happen this time?? I am not sure even if they can tolerate this new direction……

– The only way to overcome the monster-pervert is to release it fully!

– Slavoj Zizek joins the list of my mentors!

– I can see now that this (arrangement) was never gonna last…

– All revolutions are catastrophic events. And you thought you could have spiritual revival without social upheaval!

– The temptation to stop Abraham’s hand!

– The conscience beyond morality

– “It has begun.

Amen.”

– I want the freedom to waste my life; to not be accountable to anyone for my choices; to pursue my thoughts & desires to the utmost as long as I harm no one else directly or intentionally.

– She’s right. She’ll be fine (only!) without me.

– What is keeping you from (fully) becoming who you (already) are?

– Trying to forget the eternal (good) by occupying oneself with the temporal (nice).

– NSA – no strings attached!

– Spirituality

Vs.

Religion

Imagination

Vs.

Tradition

Future

Vs.

Past

New

Vs.

Old

Sexuality

Vs.

Marriage

Individual

Vs.

Society

Conviction

Vs.

Consensus

– Teleological suspension – sometimes you should just do “GOD’s will”, instead of trying to always do the “right thing”!

– I guess the time is ripe to incarnate the incubating Word, Joe!

– Loving someone

Vs.

Studying something

– If I am morbid, then so be it. At least I’m alive!

What about you?

– Purgatory & Samsara

– The struggle to make marriage work seems no longer worthwhile……

23.5.14

– Instead of trying hard to believe what is so unbelievable and not thinking too much about these ‘given truths of faith’, why don’t you try to think hard and just believe whatever comes out of it?

– I can identify more with the story of Siddhartha the Buddha, than with that of Jesus the Christ…

– To seek,

To know,

To change.

Relentless and unreserved passion…

My purpose to remake myself from the ground up!

– The psychopath

Vs.

The sociopath

– Can you feel the pain of my numbness?

Of course not!

– Movies: Girl Most Likely

Salome Imogene Divya!

Narrative identity & meaning-making

Authenticity

Vs.

Success

24.5.14

– Decentering identity

– Constructivism

– Raise the ante!

– Does the command to pursue what you want also automatically a prohibition against doing what you ought?

– Overcome curse/evil/ suffering/weakness/defeat/death

– Touch, move, fill

Anointing, fire, spirit, power, glory, victory, deliverance, blessing, consolation, encouragement…

Prayer, praise, preach, faith, obey, rejoice…

– The outstretched Arm & pierced Hand – for each & all of us!

– Revival/renewal/ restoration/purification/empowering

– The living Word that enters through the ears & mind, and breaks & shapes the heart!

– Rebuking, condemning & binding the works of Satan

– Faith of the supplicant + laying on of hands by the saints = miraculous deliverance

– Receive the Spirit!

– Water & Word

– Preaching-teaching (Gospel of the Kingdom), miracle-working (healing & exorcism) & crucifixion-resurrection (work of salvation)

– Sin, sickness & death

– Holy Spirit ~ divine forgiveness

– Holiness, health & happiness

– Jesus loves you – if you fear/trust GOD, your prayer will be answered!

– Maturing through warning

Christian wisdom & counsel

Behold!

Beware!

– The Open Secret

– Roman Catholic priests/nuns

Pentecostal pastors/monks

– Consecrated obedience » knowledge of heavenly/divine/supernatural mysteries.

– Distinguish:

Knowledge (theology)

&

Understanding (philosophy)

– Disciples ~ servants ~ apostles ~ leaders

The perfectors!

– Unity ~ fullness

– Believers » saints » perfected ones

– Anointing ~ baptism ~ fullness

– The GOD-given desire for perfection.

– The benefits of being under the authoritative ministry of the apostles

– Giving oneself over to the Lord and His people

– The official doctrine

– Knowing, loving, & growing in, the divine qualities

– Humility ~ suffering ~ obedience

– Kingdom of GOD ~ Church ~ Heaven/Zion

– Salvation is free gift, but to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we must pay a (great) price!

– Those who do good works without the motive to gain divine reward are righteous.

– Inreach & outreach

Plumb & stretch

– Suicide & the eternal self

– Let me take in BOTH the Evangelical AND the Liberal stuff, & actively allow them to clash within me!

– “Despising the shame”, because……

“Let us bear (His) reproach”

– Suffer, serve & (finally) sacrifice

– What does this (text) mean for us today?

– Becoming worthy of the Kingdom and deserving of Glory

– Those who live by faith (in GOD) are righteous.

– The right to stand before GOD – the boldness of the righteous.

– Should we love Satan, our enemy?

– All contentious people are sinners.

All unconverted people are enemies of GOD.

– Truthful ~ righteous ~ faithful ~ just

– Entry is free, but advancing further in the Way is costly.

The truths to buy, not sell:

Truth of divine healing.

Truth of holy life.

Truth of consecrated ministry.

Those who live, fight & die witnessing to truth will receive the eternal reward!

– We are Lion-cubs!

– The appointed trials