Month: August 2015

26.7.15

– testy
Ill-humor

– “Never was anything great achieved without danger.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

– The hidden face of GOD
The dark side of the moon

– “Life as literature”
Religion as metaphor

– Has the iPad changed your life?
Not just.
Has the Internet changed your life?
Definitely!

– Saussure – What does Theology have to do with Linguistics??

– I want my life & work to “constitute a critical point of departure” in contemporary (Indian) Christianity!

– Philosophers of being

– Distinguish:
Philology
Linguistics
& Semiotics
Literature –> language –> signs

– Haggai Institute vision:
Present the Gospel, to all peoples, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with cultural relevance.

– Equip people to become more effective witnesses & train other leaders.

– What could be a robust, nuanced & faithful view of evangelism for a Liberal Christian (like me)?

– Corporate training
&
Christian seminars

– “Sharing Christ”

– Chief Learning Officer
Leadership & innovation

– International faculty

– Exponentiation
Influence squared!

– Missionary compounds
Schools, hospitals & churches

– Qualified, dedicated & gathered Christian professionals

– Understanding impact
What is Mission?

– Preaching to the choir – occasional necessity

– Inward transformation

– Influencers

– “Career as carrier of the Gospel”

– Go where there is more darkness, & try being the light there, instead of running to only the bright places!

– Leverage & catalysis
Less effort, more impact – work smart!

– The law of the crowd
Vs.
The power of the few
There is nothing that a small group of committed, passionate & qualified persons can accomplish.

– “The tipping point”
The stickiness factor – the memorability of the educational content
The importance of context

– Statistical probability & strategic planning

– From religious conversion to disciple-making

– Secular conversation in the context of friendly relationship, as the opening for connecting to Christ.

– The 3 kinds of people – connectors (social), mavens (information) & salesmen (charisma & persuasion)

– Becoming a trustworthy source for those close to you…

– Rep, Haggai, RZIM, etc.

– President, vice-president, secretary & treasurer

– Alumni association

– Training camp > leadership seminar

– The natural
Vs.
The conventional

– https://vimeo.com/42870687

– Movies:
“Un Samayal Arayil” (“In Your Kitchen” – Tamil) Okay
Heart ~ kitchen – so, what’s cooking??
I hate the youth in this film!
It could have been a much better movie if it was more focused on the main story.

27.6.15

– Sports NGO

– bullion

– Setbacks, distractions & fatigue

– “Community is a discipline, bro!”

– Watch Animal Planet & NatGeo Wild

– Moving from correspondence to coherence

– A specialist of the interstices!
E.g. Study Philosophy of Religion WITHOUT building a strong base in Philosophy & Religious Studies. Learn the basics of these 2 subjects as needed, in the course of traversing the space between them, or their overlapping area!

– The mysticism of everyday life!

– The Free University of Amsterdam

– Rollicking relaxation!

– “I don’t need a friend who changes when I change, and who nods when I nod;
my shadow does that much better.” (Plutarch)

– A cultural/national identity crisis!

– How ‘productive’ is stability when compared to a revolution?

28.7.15

– President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931 – 2015)
Let us commemorate him every year on October 15th, his birthday!
A life well lived is NOT a tragedy when it comes to an end, because great persons never die…
Jai Hind.

– Why do we celebrate someone’s birthday even after they die??
NOT for all people!

– How could a celibate person be a sexual revolutionary?!

– Did Sachin Tendulkar deserve the Bharat Ratna?
Yes.

– Why did Abdul Kalam contribute to the development of an Indian nuclear weapon??
Is that a blemish on his character cum career?

– What does patriotism have to do with Christianity?

– sputter

– The power of scouting

– “The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.” – Ralph W. Sockman, American clergyman (1889-1970)

– Screen capture

– Message boards, threads, online forums

– aver

– Television movies

– Freedom, equality & fraternity
Vs.
Comfort, security & sustainability

– Readings:
“Why Politics Can’t Be Freed From Religion?” – Ivan Strenski (Intro.)

– “Commodified knowledges”

– “Confession, Obedience, and Subjectivity: Michel Foucault’s Unpublished Lectures On the Government of the Living” – Jean-Michel Landry
‘The genealogy of obedience’!

– The disruptive spirit
Vs.
Disciplinary appropriation

– “The political history of truth”

– Isn’t the whole history of religion/Christianity, one long attempt to “regularize, normalize, & disciplinarize” GOD/Christ?

– Distinguish:
Structuralism
&
Foundationalism

– “Only one man ever understood me, and he didn’t understand me” – G. W. F. Hegel

– “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” – Albert Camus

– Distinguish:
Atheism
&
Negative theology

– Readings:
“Jeremy Carrette-Foucault and Religion – Spiritual Corporality and Political Spirituality” (Intro.)

– If I am (to call myself) a Christian, then the very meaning of “Christian” or even “religion” needs to be destabilized/subverted!

– “It is hard for me to classify a form of research like my own within (conventional categories)…”

– The Human Sciences

– “Character and Anal Eroticism” – Frued
Orderliness, parsimony and obstinacy
WOW! Sounds familiar…

– Analytical philosophy > binary logic

– corporeality

– The body politic
Sexual politics
Cultural politics

– Radical theatre

– technoculture

– The performative turn

– Technologies of self

– Politics, erotics, ethics and poetics

– Queer – what’s the difference between the T & I in LGBTI?

– Question as critique!

– The incarnation-crucifixion-ascension
&
The spirit/concept-flesh/practice conflict

– Sub-textual concerns

– Performance Studies

– Materialist ethics of care

– Disability and difference

– Autoethnography

– “Polyamory” (reality TV show) – Season 1 – Episode 1
Jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity, dependence, attachment, manipulation, coercion, deception, etc.
NO MORE!

29.7.15

– “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead (American cultural anthropologist & TV personality – 1901-1978)

– http://www.npr.org/2014/04/25/301825600/are-we-asking-too-much-of-our-spouses

– “The Book of Vice”
https://getpocket.com/a/read/207804423

– https://getpocket.com/a/read/996069015

– “Collision” by The David Crowder Band
Awesome!

– Ungodly ~ helpless

– New Age:
Fritjof Capra
Thomas Kuhn
David Spangler

– NRM – New Religious Movements

– “Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief” – Rodney Stark

30.7.15

– Restart learning new hymns (with tune) on fasting days…!

– Hymns:
“Jesus, thy boundless love to me” – And (this) hope does not disappoint, because the love (of God)…
“Ask ye what great thing I know?” – “Who is life in life to me? Who the death of death will be? Jesus Christ, the Crucified!”
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Christianity (the spirit,word & body of Jesus with, in, among and through us) crucified-and-resurrected!
“Lord of all being” – Sovereignty, as the all-sustaining power (without whom nothing can exist), rather than the absolute ruler of all (under whose control all things must submit)!

– Duet (game) – as I repeatedly practice, trying to clear a stage, and fail, do I also realize that each time I attempt to succeed, I am progressing toward victory (irrespective of how far I get in each attempt)?!

– “And so my year’s record is finished. Thanks to all those friends who from time to time have sent their messages of kindly recognition and fellow-feeling. Peace to all such as may have been vexed in spirit by any utterance the pages have repeated. They will doubtless forget for the moment the differences in the hues of truth we look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this hymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us and the warmth which can make us all brothers.” – Oliver Holmes

– Why did Jesus (or Socrates) not write anything himself??
Now we have only a Matthaian/Markan/Lukan/Johannine version of Jesus (& a Platonic interpretation/portrayal of Socrates)…
Maybe that’s the whole point!  🙂
The autobiographical element (of the author) in all biographies!
GOD never intended to give us the Bible that the fundamentalists (Christian pharisees) wanted.
Even the Jewish pharisees were not as superficial, simplistic & stubborn as these guys today!

– streamlining

– impresario

– Dedicatory preface

– Biblical exegesis to support papal authority…!

– Is biblicism/bibliolatory a (thoroughly) biblical doctrine?

– Popular (millenarian) interpretations

– Age of Aquarius – third millennium

– New Age –> Next Age!

– Can there ever be a totally neutral, & therefore universally authoritative, interpretation??

– Can scholarship also be appreciative, without losing its critical edge?

– Spinozism

– Voltaire & Goethe were contemporaries!
Do you know how to pronounce these names?

– grandiloquent

– tegument

– Eastern Orthodoxy –> Catholicism –> Protestantism –> Liberalism –> Post-modern theology!

– Critical as the opposite of presumptive.

– Distinguish:
Ancient mythology
&
Enlightenment Romanticism

– Biblical tradition and Christian revelation
What does cultural anthropology have to do with biblical theology?
Ecclesiastical politics and historical theology

– The Bible as classical literature & Judaism as an ancient, Middle-Eastern religion

– Institutional interdict

– The Documentary Hypothesis

– Hexateuch

– Historical reconstruction

– The prophetic school

– Deutero-Isaiah

31.7.15

– “Take a chance while you still have the choice. ”
Remember you’re NOT immortal… so live NOW!

– Is there a difference between religiosity & spirituality?

– If I can’t freely be myself with you, then are you really my ‘friend’??
The more we are apart, the more we like each other.
Is this love?

– The celibate, the chaste and the addict
Is there a fourth category?!

1.8.15

– You can’t be the same (idiot) as long as you are with him, and you can’t leave him to live by yourself.
So, you have no choice, but to grow up, & become free! Is this good or bad news??

– Who is Guangzhi (or Chuang Tzu)?
Is or was??

– Nietzsche as psychoanalyst!

– Pilgrimage & veneration as spiritual disciplines

– metastable

– Maybe GOD is (mostly) an introvert!
Passive-aggressive??

– The democratization of (biblical) interpretation, NOT privatization!

– “The mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

– “Change nothing, so that everything is different.”

– “The question that plagues my mind: Is grace enough??” – Hopesfall

– “Bury my eyes, Into this life…!” – Luti-kriss

– “Too much (money) ain’t enough (money).”

– “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.”

– “Everyone is an entrepreneur.”

– “The good person can be happy in doing what he wants, because what he wants is good, not only for others, but also for himself.”

– “In order to come to your senses, you have to go out of your mind.”

– “Who is my neighbor?”

– “Smile, breathe, & go slowly.”

– “It’s a beautiful day, Don’t let it get away!”

– “A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep”

– “Only by admitting what we are can we get what we want.”

– “Everything has its wonders, even darkness & silence…”

– “Death is the ultimate solitary experience, and the absolute rebuff to our childish beliefs that someone ‘out there’ will save us.”

– “The greatest horror is to die old, with unlived life left in our bodies.”

– “The leader conquers his/her context, the manager adapts to it.”

– Do you have the guts to have your own definition of ‘success’, & the integrity to pursue it?

– It is more important to let GOD find you than to seek him, It is more important to let GOD love you than to please him, It is more important to let GOD serve you than to obey him.

– “I don’t know whether I will ever believe in God, but Jesus is definitely my kind of guy.”

– “It is unreasonable for people who have religious knowledge not to withstand pain.”

– “Attention to experience is the basis of discernment, and therefore of progress in life.”

– “If we allow our lives to pass by without meditation, we will never find that assurance that we think we have.” – Joseph Hall

– “I have benefited greatly from these pages and know that I have learned things that I am not aware of yet.” – Terry Delaney

– “There is no such thing in this universe as a worthless human being.” – David Burns

– “It is only through deep reflection (along with insight & imagination) that we can escape (being bound by) our past. Without this, there can be no genuine vision which answers a call from the future.” – John Ehrenfeld

– “But if we expect something, how can it move us?” – from Duet (mobile game)

– “Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.” – George Santayana

– The purpose of (this) life is (learning) to suffer well!

– “Man’s greatness comes from knowing that he is wretched.” – Blaise Pascal

– “What people call ‘reality’ is merely an effect of either power, or habit.” – Don Cupitt

– “Just because I know better doesn’t mean I can make (things) better.” – Richa Kulkarni

– “People will surprise you – do yourself a favour, let them.” – Richa Kulkarni

– “Try to see the world through your critic’s eyes.” – David Burns

– “The real solution (to inter-personal conflict) is to put an end to your own absurd inner harangue.” – David Burns

– “There are ways to face & deal with your own pain, in a way that is NOT cowardly, & NOT blind to the larger evils in your world.”

– “Ordinary life is full of grief & miracles.”

– “I am rarely looking for anything in particular. I am usually looking for everything in particular.”

– “Inside each book is the hope of a new way of seeing the world; each one is a potential adventure.”

– “Leap over your shadow”

– “Why do you have to go & make things so complicated?
I see the way you’re acting like you’re somebody else,
Makes me frustrated.
Life’s like this – you fall, you crawl, you break, you take what you get & you turn it into honesty. Promise me I’m never gonna find you faking,
No no no!”

– “You better lose yourself in the music – the moment – you own it,
You better never let it go go!
You only get one shot, Do not miss your chance to blow.
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime!”

– “Philosophy is the activity by which a human being participates consciously & critically in reality, & orients him/her-self within it.”

– “What is a nation?”

– Liberated – called out as individuals & gathered together as an alternative community – to enjoy life, confront evil & overcome death!

– “The divine is not a distinct object/person, but the depth-dimension of all things real.”

– “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained, not by growing it, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”

– “Never trust a GOD over 33”

– “When we say that GOD is sovereign, what we mean is not that nothing happens without GOD’s intention, but that nothing happens that can finally defeat him.”

– Do you wear helmet to protect your head or your wallet?

– memorandum

– From reacting (controlled by the situation & my emotions) by blaming the other for my anger & blowing my top, to responding (with calm deliberateness from my higher self) soberly & firmly by taking responsibility for myself & creatively dealing with the challenge…

– Rooting & jail-breaking
Firmware
Hacking theology?!
Using Samsung Note 1 now ~ pouring new wine into old wineskin!

– Include fiction & poetry in random learning days

2.8.15

– The question is NOT “What the Bible says?”, but “What are WE doing with what the Bible says?”!
Yes, that is what it meant to be a Christian in Jesus’ time, but what does it mean to be a Christian today??
Yes, that is what Jesus said & did there, but what would he say & do here??

– “And thou most kind and gentle death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise him! Alleluiah!”

– Yes, He reigns, but does He do it “from above”?

– How many mutual friends do you both have?

– “His breath in my nostrils”

– “O sing to the LORD a new song,
Sing to the LORD all the earth…
Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy,
For he comes, for he comes to judge the peoples.”
Earth > peoples!

– How do you keep passion/zeal from becoming lust/violence? If you don’t have this struggle, something is seriously wrong with you!

– Distinguish:
Persecution
&
Preaching
😉

– Scam, spam & scum

– What to believe, & whom to follow?

– Out of the One, many (creation),
And out of the many, One (redemption)!
The Way –> the ways,
& The ways –> the Way

– Relationship with GOD ~ Immersed & oriented in Reality.

– Revelation – interpretation is inescapable!

– Divine encounter –> conversion –> commission

– No transformation, no testimony

– Paul (Gal. 1:17-18) – 3 years in the desert, & 2 weeks with Peter!

– Would I like to be your mentee??
Huh!?

– “Have thine own way, Lord,
Mould me & make me after thy will…”
Eucharist – I take & eat the One who is “waiting yielded & still”, to be digested by me, & thereby to transform my very being!
No assimilation, no metamorphosis – so theologize!

– From soul-winning to Kingdom-seeking!

– The Bible when read alone, without any other theological resources, would still be explosive, if it was released from captivity to the local church & Christian TV interpretation (Evangelical/Charismatic)!
Each individual could still hold the Bible & the newspaper in each hand.
Eliminating all these fucking middle-men (so-called leaders/teachers) who try to domesticate Scripture for their own narrow & outmoded agenda would be enough for church revival!

Movies:
“Waking Life” (Hit!)
WOW… Dream & reality, subjectivity & objectivity, present-future & past-present, corporality & spirituality, mortality & infinity……
“Knots” (okay)
She is trying to liberate them, but they don’t seem to get it… At least they don’t crucify her!