16.12.14
Does soft always mean weak?
A strong person is one who can forego one’s freedom for the sake of the weak other.
Law
Vs.
Narrative
Narrative
Vs.
Chronology
Creative historiography
“Explicit justification for the radical rewriting of earlier traditions… neither adding nor omitting anything.”
The classical rabbinic world
Divine communication & human language:
“God, & only God, can speak two (different) things simultaneously!”
Reinterpretation
Creation = separating, ordering & naming
And to every creature that has the breath of life (living souls), I give the plants for food.
Is the Fall also a part of the Creation story?
Second Temple Period – 516 B.C.E to 70 C.E
Anthropocentric cosmology
Human society as the earthly sovereign good!
“I can hardly help wondering all the while, whether human affairs are worth serious effort. And yet it is our unhappy lot to take them seriously.”
The heavens and the earth
The earth & the heavens
Heavens
&
Heaven
Ergonomic
Celestial beings & heavenly bodies
Work/till it & tend/keep it – man & the ground; husband & wife
Helper/assistant (vocational support) & partner/companion (personal relationship)
Gerontology
No self-control, no personal freedom
As much as the things that you experience, it is also the things that you miss, that make you who you are!
26.12.14
‘Sex work’
Navayana brings Slavoj Zizek to India!
Sexism, racism, casteism, classism, moralism, statism, nationalism, liberalism, marketism, fundamentalism, militarism, culturalism, etc.
Publicization
Queer bodies
Extend the age of (attaining) full adulthood from 25 to 30!
When you are helping someone to grow to maturity, you should know when to be tender/patient with their weaknesses, and when to be firm in stretching/pushing them forward…
“Urbi et Orbi”
Common sense bullshit!
Proper queerness
Innuendos & in-jokes
16.12.14
– Artists,scholars & activists
– What you want
Vs.
What you ought
– What you can
Vs.
What you must
– Today I attended a Mohiniaatam recitation (Classical dance form from Kerala) – Bhavan’s Cultural Festival
Dance: Music the heart, dancer the body & audience the mind.
Dance is the perfect expression of the harmony between the inner & outer world!
17.12.14
– Despair is spiritual laziness,
Apathy is moral laziness,
Passivity is volitional laziness,
Foolishness is intellectual laziness,
Inactivity is physical laziness,
Mediocrity is professional laziness,
Indifference is social laziness……
– Bread & wine:
“Gift of GOD,
Fruit of the land,
Work of our hand…”
– Never trust a sage/guru less than 40!
(unless it is the Christ)
– I must be willing to be known as a lazy, selfish & crazy person, in order to fulfill my Calling!
If I truly love people, I must be willing to do certain hard things for them, that might even make them hate me…
I must swallow my pride and serve them.
I must also swallow my fear and be myself!
– Auto-correct requires manual recorrect!
– Christ – only GOD can show us what it means to be human!
– The Cross:
1. Err – GOD, self & others
2. Confront – GOD, self & others
3. Confess & repent – GOD, self & others
4. Forgive & reconcile – GOD, self & others
The Cross – the crystallization, climax & ultimate resolution of the tug-of-war between GOD & Man, between flesh & spirit, & between male/husband & female/wife!
– How would the world be today if the feminine aspect of Man was more dominant than the masculine??
– No one truly changes unless they are forced to…
The greatest/best decisions we have ever made were never free choices!
No necessity, no invention.
Really?? What about the joy of creativity?
– You should be able to limit your freedom out of consideration for another, but you ought never to forego it completely for anyone’s sake (including yourself or even GOD).
– He who never wants to do what he cannot, and he who can never do what he does not want, will never grow!
When the internal forces & external factors are powerful enough, one can suddenly be enabled to be & do the impossible (bypassing the usual process of becoming) !
18.12.14
– CIFF has begun! ☺
Movies:
1. “The Brotherhood of Tears” (French)
The bond of loss/grief among the masses, and the super-rich vampires – two very different ways of coping with reality (hardship/emptiness) – love & greed! Excess wealth is as much a curse as poverty, if not greater…
2. “The Illusion” (Greek)
When you win, I must lose! Remember?
– Movies:
“Exodus: Gods & Kings”
To contemporary man, even the GOD of the O.T looks infantile… That’s how far we have come, by Grace, through faith!
19.12.14
– But isn’t self-transcendence better than self-control?
– Nice < good < great
– Movies:
1. “Jimmy’s Hall” (Irish)
Every hero needs a villain!
2. “Tuscan Wedding” (Dutch)
Fiasco/debacle/blunder – that’s life. Take it as it is.
3. “Charlie’s Country” (Australian)
Nostalgia
Vs.
Survival
It’s better to be marginalized than to be extinct.
20.12.14
– Movies:
1. “Love Battles” (French)
Hmmm… Good therapy! And they fought happily ever after ☺ Maybe this is what we really want!
2. “Playing Dead” (French)
Never felt so alive!
3. “Roseville” (Bulgarian)
“What if I say no?”
“You’ve already said yes! ”
– Life = play + fight + dance
Live = believe + love + work
– The opposite of something is not incompatible to it, but an essential discursive/dialectic complementary to it. Only the third (unrelated/irrelevant/unnecessary) entity is the enemy.
E.g. Life, death & despair
21.12.14
– “Sorry” can be said when you just feel bad about something, even if you have not done anything wrong.
– When it is always a question of only a right/good or wrong/bad decision, you really don’t have a choice! Choice (& therefore natural desire & free will) comes fully into play only when you have 2 or more options which are all relatively neutral regarding their moral value.
E.g. Aesthetics!
22.12.14
– Movies:
1. “Labour of Love” (Bengali)
The liturgy of industrialized relationships
2. “Stations of the Cross” (German)
Caricature or prophecy?
Sanctity & sanity – synonyms or antonyms?!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer + Walter Brueggeman = Dietrich Brueggeman!
3. “Supernova” (Dutch)
When you realize that the something, which you thought was everything, is actually nothing… then you find the Nothing out of which everything comes!
23.12.14
– Beauty & goodness – the authority that is (exercised) ‘from below’! The truth that is arrived at most unwittingly…
– Movies:
1. “The Man-eater” (French)
If you love me, then shouldn’t you allow me to keep my faith and sacrifice your desire to consummate your love, when they contradict each other? And what if it’s the other way around?!
Should Christians always strive to point people to Christ alone, & never try to save people themselves?
2. “Choti Moti Batein” (Hindi)
What is adulthood? What is maturity? What is wisdom?
I guess it’s the opposite of all that we see in this story!
24.12.14
– Radical conservatism
– Movies:
“Wild Tales” (Argentina – Spanish)
No passion (E.g. Anger), not human.
No restraint/conscience, not human.
Pacified just war! (righteous indignation)
25.12.14
– Upheaval is disavowal is unbecoming!
– Outcastes, dissidents & rebels
– Movies:
“Kuttram Kadithal” (“Punishment” – Tamil)
Start with the particular instant, but always go on to address the larger issues.
26.12.14
– Imbrications
– World-view
Life-view
Life-world
World-life
– Cash crops
– Which is worse – a bland loveless marriage or a passionate conflicting one?
– Marriage – looking at your spouse as your equal, as a child who needs to be taken care of, & someone you can look up to – all 3 – but you should know which one when!
– Christmas – missed the church worship service due to a stressor, but compensated by watching the Sunday Mass (webcast) today with Chellam!
Awesome ministry
– “The sky torn open” – our greatest fear becomes the vehicle through which GOD manifests himself in our lives, as the hero-champion who uses our greatest adversities as opportunities to prove (to us) the unlimited power of His love & truth!
– The darkness (the earthly) could not completely comprehend, and therefore control & ultimately defeat, the light (the heavenly) – the Mystery remains, forever!
– “Little baby Jesus” – we are saved (from ourselves) by devoting ourselves to care for & serve the utterly vulnerable & defenseless!
27.12.14
– I will never be normal in their eyes, & they will never be interesting to me……
– It seems that the closer you get to another, the more incompatible you become, because at our core, beneath all the superficial adjustments, each of us is utterly unique/singular/isolated! Therefore, your ‘soulmate’ can be only one & can never be another person……
Is this truth good or bad news? Spiritual fundamentals (like the nature of GOD) can never be put in such neat boxes!
– Seasonal spirit
– I think more love marriages break than arranged marriages, because the former is more emotionally authentic (more honest) & the latter is more of a social contract (more stable).
– You can give up the pursuit of happiness either because you are enlightened, or because you are depressed.
– Maybe I should just live in the present moment (consciousness – e.g. Being human) instead of trying to achieve something in the future (vocation – e.g. Spiritual director) or stay true to something in the past (identity – e.g. Husband).
Immanuel Joseph's Blog 