15.6.14
Logjam
Levant
Battle-hardened
Eponymous
Axiomatic decision
Surveillance state
18.6.14
Comic theory
Month: June 2014
Thoughts
12.6.14
– Bard
– Back to school for the great fool!
– Is divine law an arbitrarily imposed ethic or a codified explication of the natural order?
– Hostility » tolerance » hospitality
– Is it possible to ‘use’ another human being or oneself, without ‘harming’ that person or oneself?
– The third party (in relational morality)
– If individual freedom is sacred, then am I not prohibited from denying any of my desires from being fulfilled?!
– Threats & offers in inter-personal dynamics
– Moral restriction & metaphysical safety
14.6.14
– Was Jesus a Christian?
– Maybe the caste issue that stalled my application for admission in Loyola College was providential! Now I am going to join dual degree by distance education……
– Emma Gonsalvez 1932 – 2014
RIP.
Murdered?!!
– When confronted be evil, we either fight or flee. Both are expressions of fear. Is there a third way (which is more fitting for the faithful)?
Yes… Stand!
– Soteriology – moving the emphasis from ‘sin’ to ‘evil’!
15.6.14
– “England player sturridge equalised 1-1 before half time and said ‘I love you JESUS’!”
“Mmm… So is this what Christian witness means da??”
– Movies:
“Woyzeck
” (German)
Suffering beyond despair!
“Rock On
” (Hindi)
If you are to chase your dreams, then you must come to grips with reality!
16.6.14
– Rekha Rodwittiya
The endeavour of focus
Personal politics
– Dear family… A kind request: When I am in my room and the door is closed, please understand that I am NOT to be disturbed. Do NOT push the door or barge in suddenly! Please knock and ask for me to respond or open. When I keep the door open, you can freely move in & out. OK?
PLEASE REPLY.
PEACE
– Straddling the 2 worlds of Church & University!
– The System is rigidly inefficient when you are seeking excellence, & when you need some flexibility for your own shortcomings, it is rigidly unforgiving!
But NOT always 😉
– If there is no marriage in heaven, then will we also be asexual?? If so, will we still be human?!
Lines
10.6.14
– Rue
– Personal identity is spiritual i.e. it is biological + psychological + relational + professional + cultural + political + MORE!
– Let’s see how long I can tolerate being a nobody in the eyes of the world……!
– Why don’t you have a PAN number (yet)?!
– Am I Called to be anonymous?
– In this world, is it possible for an individual to survive without a structural/systemic identity? Is this worth exploring?
– What is too close/deep can only be expressed, not examined…
– I guess I am trying to have the cake & eat it too! Maybe it’s time to repent…
10.6.14
Refreshed attentiveness to the material marvel of sensuous givenness
Taking for granted the fact that it is all granted
Manifestness/showing
Face-mask
A certain integrity & solidarity to mindful selving – the enfleshed becoming of the soul
The physiognomy of souls
Enthralled by ~ in thrall to
Ken
We have to be changed utterly, and not changed at all, changed into what we are, re-created into what we are to be.
No truth can ever be practiced before it is believed-loved first.
Speculative metaxology
Metaphysical cantos
Readings:
God & the Between by William Desmond – Preface & Introduction
Am I (trying to be) a renaissance man?
Butt
Cask
What we believe/love (& therefore how we live) is determined more by our own subjective constitution than by more apparently objective reasons…
Idio-
Meta-critical analysis
Meta-analysis
The metaphysics of finitude & the physics of infinity
The one who gave birth (Father-GOD) to you (son-Man), & even now still provides for/sustains you, gives his world into your hands to choose whether his will/desire is done or not……!
Ground of being ~ grain of the universe
Words
8.6.14
– Be politically incorrect!
Be a rebel, in your own way, even going against other contemporary (so-called) revolutionaries……
– Just find something else to try out!
– Mohallas
– Instantaneity
– Nissim Mannathukkaren
– T.M. Krishna
– Prophets as ‘naysayers’!
– Building frustration tolerance through sports
– Robert Flaherty
– “The World Before Her”
– Eponymous
– Mythology/biblical Studies (ancient) » Theology (medieval) » Philosophy (modern) » Critical Theory (post-modern)
– Movies:
Eyes Wide Shut
Sex, guilt & death – where is love in all of this?? What does marriage mean in this context?
9.6.14
– Buck the trend!
– Headhunters
– Passion for the field, professional competence & social skills
– My self + my world + my GOD = my life
– I am almost 35 years old, & I don’t even know what I am going to do in the future……! 😦
– Think. Pray. Love.
– Philosophy as inter-cultural & trans-religious theology
– Post-modern Platonism
– Should I stay completely outside the system?
Should I collaborate with the system as a freelancer?
Should I get into the system?
System – church, academia, NGOs etc.
– Should/can I compromise my identity (contemplative, maverick, autodidact) in order to fulfill the mission to meet a genuine need (education, philosophy, spirituality) in society?
– Am I wasting my life/burying my talents?
– Should I stop all formal ministry – fortnightly small group meetings?
– Maybe freedom (from making a living) is not without its disadvantages, after all!
– But what about the ordinary/lay people who are not in academia/seminary – who will teach/guide them??
But I am never again going after people to help/serve, when they themselves are not motivated by concern for their own growth!
– Passive seeker
– Does the shepherd need the sheep?
– Spirituality + philosophy = theology!
– I will live, believe & love among few others now. After I die, my spirit (life, words, etc.) will spread and work in & through many more……!
Scribbles
7.6.14
Dianoetic
Ethical selving
Metaxological
Shout-out
Chiaroscuro
Enabling repertoire of self-becoming
Agapeic, overdetermined origin
Power of affirmation
Milieu of the good
Pre-determined being
I never even imagined that I would become a pornography activist!
The goodness of being
Subtle constancies that emerge out of forms of being-together
Possibilize
William Desmond
Potencies & senses of being
Antinomy
The ethos of being
Being & the Between
Ethics & the Between
God & the Between
Idiotics
Agapeics
Philosophical systematics & religious poetics
Intimate universal
Counterfeit doubles
What we ought to be (now) is nothing qualitatively different from what are to be (ultimately)!
Porous boundaries
Self-mediation
Determinacy
New media
Attentive mindfulness of the other & self-determination
Transpersonal
Hyperboles of being
Conceptual possession & philosophical exorcism!
Passio essendi
mirabile dictu
Totalizer
De rigueur
Laicization
Determinate reconfigurations of the primal ethos
Ontological promise
Plurivocity
8.6.14
Conceptual colonisation of Christianity
Distinguish:
Objective
&
Absolute
Systematic completeness & dialectical negativity
“Thinking on the things themselves”
Traduce
Distinguish:
Freedom
&
Autonomy
Being out beyond
Claims of dubious grandeur
The self-encirclement & self-laceration of narcissism!
Friendly fire
Community of belief & true piety
Scholastic technique
Metaphysical astonishment
“Barbarism of reflection”
Fluid intermediacy
Default atheism
Intellectual seriousness & spiritual reverence
The matrix of value
From ratio to intellectus
Patience ~ passion
Mindful being
Strong intuition
Reaching beyond understanding & staying in mystery
The subject, the context & the object
Reconfigure/reimagine
Light, things, reflections & shadows
More than the whole
Etsi Deus non daretur
Postulatory finitism
Totalising discourses
Comportment
The open whole
Excess of being
Determinate & self-determining totality
Between contemplation & reflection
Constitutionally explorative
A plurivocal voice to sing forth the gift of being’s self-offer
Fundamental possibilities of minding & being
Familiality
Genuine knowledge of otherness manifest in human self-transcendence
The intelligibility of being as between
Vico
Vamp
Glissando
The poetic, rhetorical & encyclopaedic elements of philosophy
Surrender to equivocity
Unmediated difference
Ecotecture
Contributing to the very problems we aspire to solve!
Master-slave thought
Rescuing dialectics from univocity
Metaphysical structures
Our views of being
Ways of being in the world of things
Post-Cartesian
Post-Kantian
Post-Hegelian
Apotheosis
Nature as other-being
A superior transcendence
Vs.
Our own immanent self-transcendence
Ways to GOD
We must all continue to be influenced by diverse sources, and resist the temptation to bring others under the spell of our own mentors. This will result in a much more complementary/complimentary, rich & tensive community!
Furor
Putative
The indefinite, overdetermined primordial ethos
Intelligiblizing
A particular complex order/network of determinate happenings & relations
Dominant contemporary configurations
Elemental ontological resource
Perdure
Ephemeral gods
Precipitating occasion
Proofs (for the existence of GOD) as probes
A communicative sign, token, clue
The unconditioned as regulative ideal
9.6.14
There is a right way to scold, & a wrong way to scold
Forms of life
Being in relation (to the other)
Historical relativism
Religious being – our perplexity about the ultimate
The given/ontological/truth and the good/ethical/meaning
Determinate relations
“That it is at all”
“Coming to be”
Unearthing the presupposed & gazing into it
Mindful dwelling
Why should I always be doing something? Why can’t I just be someone?!
If I can already read & understand William Desmond, why should I study M.A. Philosophy in college and then teach others who don’t want to learn?
Unconditional demand
Conditional occurences
The hospitality of the ethos of being
Communicative, immanent signs
Complex fragility
Absolute charge
The pathway of inwardness
Original givenness
Within the immanent exigence of the ethical (the call of the Good)
Object => desire, then desire => object
Ground of the ethos
Categories & arguments
Enabling resources of intelligence & value
Totality of finite determinations or a self-determining totality
Constitutive openness
Double call on our mindfulness – ontological exploration of what is given in immanence and a metaphysical transcending in immanence to what exceeds any totalized immanence.
The transcendent as the ground (source/basis) of the immanent
Unremitting immanence
The middle
The whole – the totality of immanent being
Ontological endowment
The origin/the beyond
Thinking from the midst
Sublationary infinitism
The borderline between the finite & the infinite
Signs of transcendence within immanence – hyperboles of
being
The “too muchness” of immanent being
Demur
Between object & subject
The middle way
Conceptual hubris
Rational idols
Counterfeit doubles
A new poverty of philosophy
Listening to the voices of important others
Metaxological metaphysician
Metaphysical therapy
Thinking of GOD > the meaning of being
Onto-theology & divine revelation
Metaxu + logos
…our efforts to make intelligible sense of our being in the midst of things.
Fundamental senses always already at work
GOD (transcendent source) => primal ethos (immanent being/Word) => secondary ethos (Man)
Rich singularity, intricate communications, and complex intermediations
Given metaxological community of being
Immanent articulation of transcendent communications
The fourfold sense of being
Love:
Self including the other
Cancelling the self for the sake of the other
Self & other held together in GOD
The supreme form of an encompassing self-mediation of the whole that includes all differences within itself.
The irreducible pluralism of intermediations
The all-inclusive self-mediation of dialectical-speculative totality
The immanent between & the transcendent between
What happens when the teacher himself later cancels out all his former teachings?! What do the disciples do then?? They must choose between following the teachings & loving the teacher……!
Universal impermanence
Porous passing beyond
Multiple differences & mediations
Stirring constancies
Holism
Enigmatic origin
Ultimate transcendence as other to the immanent between
The effort to articulate what the fullest senses of being communicate
Metaxological systematics
A disciplined understanding of enabling connections… interplays exceeding the closure of every whole on itself!
I am NOT one of you, folks!
Original porosity – passion of being => religious poetics => artistic expression => philosophical systematics
A being between
A medium of passage
Religious being => being religious
The extremes of religiosity might find itself called to the impossible finesse of prophetic mindfulness or mystical love.
Coming to be
Tutelary divinity
From now onwards, my inward life (& intimate love) alone will be proactive, & all other aspects like chores, ministry will only be reactive.
Immanent openness to otherness and metaphysical hospitality to transcendence
The idiocy of being
The incarnate glory of aesthetic happening
Contingency & finitude
Self-surpassing
Self-overcoming
Self-transcending
Passion => compassion
Laughter => style
Passion as intensive intimacy
Gifted
Beyond (& beneath) method/technique
Ineluctable singularity
Uniqueness ~ idiosyncrasy ~ eccentricity!
Musings
25.5.14
– The lawless Law-giver
– Turnstiles
– Love = attention
– Tinsel
– KFI, Shantiniketan, Vidya Vanam
– DUB
– So you are taking full advantage of their unconditional acceptance and therefore you’re gonna push the limits of tolerance… Right?!
– Independent education
Distinguish:
Casual
&
Informal
– Stay young @ heart, forever!
– Enquire, examine, explore, experiment, evolve!
– Movies:
Zodiac
Was his investigation worth it, especially because of what he had to do to his family?
Sometimes you just MUST do something, irrespective of the pros & cons!
27.5.14
– The eternal-universal-essential
– Critical ~ vital
– Reactualize!
– Comic theory, tragic subjectivity & theological revolt
– Revolutionary ~ subversive ~ transgressive!
– Genealogical approach
– Metacritical history
– Doctrine of univocity
– Theory, ideology & culture
28.5.14
– Distinguish:
Detachment
&
Indifference
Is it possible to be impassive & compassionate?
– Gen.17:17 – the Father of Faith!
– The basic skeletal structure must be maintained even on the (alternate) freak-out days. But on the 1 out of 7 days (weekly Sabbath) – even that can be discarded and you can experience total chaos!! 😉
– The doctrine of divine sovereignty & the scandal of match-fixing
30.5.14
– Why/how are some persons entirely different from their background?!
ASHOK
– Gentle, pious & lovable father. Inspiration in music.
– Liked Chemistry & Physics
– Worship music
Youth ministry
– Reserved person
Stage fear
– Rich Mullins
Steven Curtis Chapman
Impressed by personal testimonies
– Gaining confidence, developing skill, new exposures
– Gospel of Grace
– Abelraj & Epistle to Romans
– Passionate about reading Bible
– Martin Luther biography
– Parenting & theology
– My response – when you pursue any desire or goal beyond a certain extent (extreme), it becomes dangerous & destructive – that is called passion or excellence!
Balanced people maybe healthy, but they are also mediocre…
31.5.14
– “I just wanted to make things better between us.”
– Nobody knows just how close we both came to divorce and this retreat might never have happened!
Maybe even we both don’t know……
– The spectre of embarrassment
– Carlo & Gracie
Sharyl & Joel
– Why does he want to kill her? Because he hates her.
Why does he hate her? Because she hates him.
Why does she hate him?
– Can one be asexual and fully human?
– Is the Cross the glorification of ignominy?
– I’m gonna write my own marital vows. I’m gonna make a new religion for myself……
– Etiquette
Vs.
Ethicality
– Even in this retreat, what would happen if each of us let go of our usual inhibitions and freely expressed our feelings?
– Into the Wild
– The desire for happiness/meaning
&
The pursuit of truth/GOD
– The bio-psycho-spiritual (individual/internal/subjective) – the GOD within
Vs.
The religio-moral-cultural (social/external/objective) – the GOD without
– What is the right balance between:
What you ought to do now (to get to where you ultimately wanna be)
&
What you would like to do now (for its own sake)
– How can the certainty of death help us to live well now? How does this affect how we answer the previous 2 questions?
– The kingdom of God IS withIN you!
– Eastern religions are better for individual spirituality, & the Judeo-Christian tradition is better for public theology. So how does one handle this problem?
– I think I should make the SFG meeting & online conference once a month. Informal one-to-one mertings can be encouraged. Continue the annual (3-day) retreat.
Any (formal) ministry activity over & above this would be shit. I should also start visiting people (annual) in my inner circle, especially those in the mission field.
2.6.14
– Saving the world
Vs.
Not killing people
Becoming the evil we fight!
– GOD in the other is the counterpoint to the GOD in me! Objectivity through dialogue.
– Person > life > things
Things » life » persons
– Materialist spirituality
Secular theology
– Supposit
– Explananda
– Movies:
X-men – Days of Future Past
Eternity, atonement & Parousia – the Coming One! Since there is One who comes to us from the Future, we are delivered from being controlled by the Past…
If you only knew what kind of future this way leads to, then you would repent & change the past!
Identify GOD, Satan, Christ, Church, World, etc.
– A fortiori
– Civil religion
– Compare:
The false,
The ugly
&
The evil
– Michael Card
– Books:
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
3.6.14
– How contemplatives can contribute to activists, & vice versa?
– Distinguish:
Speculation
&
Contemplation
– Intuition, instinct & impulse
– All theology is contextual (personal & social), including biblical/canonical theology!
– Cash for votes
– Mmm… Coercion can be internal (sex drive) or external (peer pressure), for (hypersexual culture) or against (conventional morality). But it is always bad!
It is amazing how the line between freedom & slavery is so thin/blurred!!
– When 2 (or more) adults use each other mutually, voluntarily & occasionally for pleasure (sexual, psychological, etc.), is it ‘loving’ (to oneself & the other)??
– The problem of pleasure is no less serious than the problem of suffering! Both have to be made meaningful, if they are to be kept from ‘breaking bad’…
4.6.14
– Searing
– Undersecretary
– There are realms of human life (like sex, business, politics, etc.) where words like “love” (which are more personal & relational – family, marriage, fellowship, friendship) become irrelevant. In such cases, the word “justice” is more appropriate & effective in ensuring moral conduct.
Moving from mere sentimentality to genuine ethicality…!
Priorities in tension:
People
Vs.
Principles
Interconnected, but not identical. Converging, but also diverging!
– Grape juice, milk & honey
– Creative ~ traumatic ~ subversive!
– It is amazing how the same action could come out of either spiritual liberty or bondage!
– I think the main point of the movie “Between Us” is the fact of human brokenness, & the real challenge is not to overcome or conquer sin/evil (pride, bitterness, failure, etc.), but to stay human in the midst of the Fall!
Religion/wealth (Joel), family/marriage (Sharyl), career/success (Carlo), service/morality (Gracie) are all failed saviours! But it takes guts to realize & accept this truth, only then can we survive ourselves…
– Eleazar – martyrdom, not for the sake of certain ancient laws & ancestral customs (against paganism), but for the fundamental human right/freedom of faith & conscience (against tyranny)!
– Is your philosophy able to face & survive the horrors of this world??
– Exhortation to apostasy!
– Is (your) life beautiful, terrible or bland?
– Encomium
– Should I rebuke Vivi for discouraging my mother from attending the retreat?
– If we maintain our humanity in the Fall, then we will become divine when GOD finally annuls the Fall!
– What does hagiography have to do with erotics?
– De-tabooing sexuality & thereby liberating man!
– I don’t like people who drag their feet while walking
– Is it possible that one achieves more through one’s death than through an entire lifetime of work?
– Just stop thinking/reflecting, & start sensing/perceiving for a while!
– When someone compels you for anything, that means they need you. So GOD never nags!
– Religion & culture
Morality & the brain
Philosophy & economics
5.6.14
– Red letter day
– man Friday
– Evince
– “Theory praxis” – that’s a good name for what I (try to) do!
– Living > loving > knowing
– Distinguish:
Anarchist
&
Anti-social
Personalist
&
Individualist
– I need to sharpen the general norm by being the exception (‘rarest of the rare’) !
– Individualism:
Selfishness & originality
Creativity & immorality
– Is sexual freedom essential for spiritual growth?
– How do you approach ‘constitutional problems’?
6.6.14
– The selfishness in altruism &
The altruism in selfishness.
What is love??
Is it to sacrifice your own desires for the sake of the other or to unite your will with another’s?
7.6.14
– Concept & reality
– Elide
– The Protestant impulse & the postmodern spirit
Anti-theological theology!
– Curry (v.)
– Vernacular
– Knowing who GOD is
Vs.
Getting as much as we can from GOD
Vs.
Doing as much as we can for GOD
– The never-ending exploration of, & fascination with, the divine mystery, as worship.
– No Son, no Father.
No Father, no Son.
– Rev.3:12 – tridimensional identity – Naming!
– If identity is radically & totally relational, then isn’t the individual held hostage to historical-social dynamics? And without individual freedom how can there be any (cultural or political) reform/progress?
I am a medical doctor » I am Salome’s husband » I am Immanuel Joseph!
– The diversity within unity – radical otherness IN the self!
– Ps.27:1 – academics & faith
– Particularity & universality
– The eternal implications of historic encounters
– Designer GOD
– “Who does this man think he is?”
– The humour of Jesus
– A lay person who teaches seminarians!
– Gradually & stutteringly coming to faith
– The son is equal to the father!
– The Father is the God OF Jesus.
The Christ is the son OF God.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit OF GOD (the Father & the Son)
– The stone is rolled away, not to let Jesus out, but to let us in!
– The new/higher dimension includes the old/lower, but not vice-versa!
– “The clouds”
– Pneumatology is the key to contemporary theology!
– The Spirit upon, with & in the faithful
– Distinguish:
Chastening
&
Retribution
– The 2 persons united as one composite unit by the 3rd entity – Love!
– Uncomprehension & misapprehension
– In the name (not names) of (the triune) God
– Mas. » Dr. » Mr.
– Jesus spoke much more to GOD than the other way around!
– Personality includes relationality, but exceeds it!
– 1Jn.1:1-3
– Shared life/being/substance
– The Athanasian Creed
– Eternal generation/procession
– Planting sublime desires
– (Spiritual) identity:
Personal, relational & public
– Ubuntu
– One what & three whos
– The Church (& marriage/family) as the best illustration of the Trinity!
– Good theology & bad grammar!
– Godhead ~ mankind
– Woman – an after-act, not afterthought!
– Trinity, gender & sexuality
– The Christian community has abdicated its role in the process of legislation to the secular state
– The revelation of the personal nature of entities usually considered to be impersonal!
– Univocity, equivocity & analogy
– Does (the reality of) GOD overflow the (concept of) Trinity?
– GOD is known partly & unknown largely
– Worshipping the transcendent & loving the immanent GOD
– Before the creation of the material world, there is no time.
– Freedom:
Voluntarism
Vs.
Essentialism
– Is GOD completely/absolutely ‘free’?!
– Sevenfold
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
Experience
10.5.14
Heroic failures
“Success is overrated”
“The worst is not so long as we can say, This is the worst.”
Exploring & articulating one’s own most fundamental assumptions & feelings…
Glory ~ holiness ~ beauty
Revelation of truth through incarnated love!
Truth, beauty & goodness ~ intellect, senses & will ~ faith, joy & love
Agonistic
The preconditioning of experience
The truth & goodness of Beauty!
In order to be united with another, you must first be drawn out of yourself.
Christ – the one who reveals the universal, ubiquitous Glory in the world!
Passionate ~ jealous?
Is GOD possessive/envious?
The eros in agape & phileo
No (personal) integrity without union (with the other)!
Being-existing => knowing-desiring (includes believing-loving & feeling-thinking) => willing-acting
Adoration > praise
Are commitment & obligation the same?
Can we have intimacy & longevity in our relationships without these?
What about desire & love?
School Management Committee
Child Protection Unit
Disaster Risk Reduction
Lower class – increased deaths due to hunger (struggling to survive)
Middle class – increased deaths due to stress (climbing the ladder)
Upper class – increased deaths due to suicide (loss of meaning)
Beauty as the way into the good life…
Grace – what is sacrifice without gift?
Resurrection – what is immortality without transformation?
Major trilogy
Aesthetic theology (the love of beauty)
Vs.
Theological aesthetics (the beauty of love)
Training our senses to discern & enjoy Beauty
The violence of chastity & lasciviousness
14.5.14
Stage, cast & plot
Historical thought
17.5.14
Atreyu
Only the prodigal knows the Father. Therefore, he alone is fit to live in His house…
Bliss
Vs.
Joy
Ego-self
Vs.
Soul-atman
Overcoming hunger & tiredness
The pain of cyclicality (pointlessness)!
Law + freedom = love
Wisdom IS salvation!
Brahman, Samana,……
What is the third way?
21.5.14
To do only what you want always is the perfect recipe for misery!
The period of stillness-being must come between the alternating periods of like (getting-holding) & ought (doing-becoming).
3 equal phases!
In fact, the first should be the matrix in which the other two are embedded & interact…
But what about when the like, ought & being are mixed up?!
Open marriage
Swingers
Polyamory
Static moderation is boredom-death.
Tensive balance of extremes is life-joy!
Curious
Excited
Anticipation
Newness
Freeing, conquering, losing one’s own self
Nature, desire & will
Significance & interpretation
Impetuous
Impertinent
Headstrong
Fuck (all) strategy & rhetoric!
“To obey like this, not to an external command, only to the (inner) voice, to be ready like this, this was good, this was necessary, nothing else was necessary.”
The mystic > the ascetic!
What is the opposite of beggar?
Existential reality (bio-psychic) alone is the whole truth!
I had left the key in the Scooty after parking it in the Chennai bus-stand. Three days later, when we returned from Vellore, I realized in shock, what I had done! Then instead of getting furious at myself (as I usually do after a blunder), I (mentally) released my grip (possession/ownership) from the vehicle. I had been reading the novel “Siddhartha” when traveling in the bus.
Later, a man called Murugan came to me, & handed me the Scooty key, saying that it was found lying on the ground beside it, & he had kept it safely until he could hand it over to the owner……
You will never accept or understand me (or even try to), because according to you, I am WRONG!
Opposite
Apposite
“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”
“Siddhartha is calm. He knows no impatience, or emergency.”
From mere ‘giving-&-taking’, to the majesty of ‘meaning-&-passion’!
NOT all poverty is destitution!
“Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better.”
“Stop scolding, dear friend! Nothing was ever achieved by scolding. If a loss has occurred, let me bear it. So, leave it as it is, my friend, and don’t harm yourself by scolding!
If the day will come, when you will see: this Siddhartha is harming me, then speak a word and Siddhartha will go on his own path. But until then, let’s be satisfied with one another.”
Of course I do everything for my own amusement. What else should/could I do?!
Jesus vs. Buddha
Samuel vs. Siddhartha
Immanuel vs. Joseph
Wither Gautama??
Hurry, worry & anger
Child ~ animal
Brahmin => Samana => Buddha => Siddhartha!!!
“But again and again, more than anything, he came back to learn the art of love, practised the cult of lust, in which more than in anything else, giving and taking becomes one…”
Maybe vocational guidance (Kingdom of GOD, SHAPE Profile, etc.) is the most useless, & even harmful thing I have ever done!
Samsara, Sadhana & Samadhi
The inward voice (spiritual)
Vs.
The conscience (moral)
Beyond good & evil (Nietzsche)
&
Eternity as the fusion of the son & the sea (Rimbaud)
Me & my family – of course we need each other… But who is more dependent?
Body < mind Mind => World!
Maybe Eros & Thanatos converge at their respective ultimates!
The truth is eternal and immutable indeed. But our grasp of it (or it’s grasp of us) is in constant flux!
There are no right and wrong decisions, only true & false choices!
Yesterday & today, there is an amazing correspondence between what I am reading & what is happening in my life!
Sound familiar?!
The goal of all effort & thought is to become totally spontaneous!
Glass closet
It is time for my ‘coming out’…
PDSO – persons of different spiritual orientation!
Now, should I weep or rejoice??
Old, ill, evil, tired, sad, disgusted, desperate,…
Psychologism
Predictable crises
Tautology
“Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.”
Atman/man/earth (Nirvana)
Vs.
Brahman/GOD/heaven (Yoga)
Self-annihilation
Vs.
Self-denial
Gaga
Strike-out
Inanity
Vs.
Insanity
27.5.14
To enjoy whatever comes your way, without attachment or pursuing, along with deep sympathy for all, is holiness.
“What you really are is not what you are now.”
The eternal self
Silent, friendly, knowing, patient……
Can anguish & bliss coexist?
28.5.14
Moral psychology
Attribute-generator
Tyson => Rambo => Maan Karate!
Knockout => bounce-back => elude
Simplicity, infinity & perfection
Enjoy doing what you feel/like/want now
Vs.
Doing what you ought now, to get to where you ultimately need to arrive at
Equivocity
Vs.
Univocity
Trinity – “Being is, univocally, difference”!
Origami cosmos!
Substance
Vs.
Process
GOD ~ nature, essence, energy
Post-modern metaphysics
29.5.14
Moving (the emphasis) from the science of real truth to the art of good living!
Physicality, affectivity & sexuality
Vs.
Religiosity, morality & sociality
The maximum number for small group or retreat should be 9 (i.e below 10)
Self-contradiction is inevitable, & therefore acceptable!
The helpful
Vs.
The effective
The healing
Vs.
The curative
Infinity, eternity & universality
Include annual retreat members for SFG retreat
Devotional = mystical + liturgical + theological
People, problems & concepts
Enigma (softcore)
Vs.
Trauma (hardcore)
The cheerfully benevolent face
To find is just (& only) to stop searching!
Purity, calmness & cheerfulness
The smile of simultaneity
Existence as manifestations & transformations!
Matter is not an illusion, time is!
Morality/ethics theology/philosophy mysticism/mythology!
4.6.14
Compare:
David’s refusal to drink the ‘bloody’ water
&
Us drinking the ‘blood’ of Jesus
The leader is always the first to face the enemy!
Leader ~ trail-blazer ~ martyr
The mystical-eschatological-apocalyptic message
And now remain faith, hope & love,
And the greatest of these is hope!
For without hope, there can be neither any faith nor love…
Immanuel Joseph's Blog 