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Showing posts with the label Hope

Forces of Chaos and Disorder

God uses the animals Behemoth and Leviathan to remind us that, like everything that exists, the enormous forces of chaos and disorder are subject to divine power, even if it does not annihilate them. From the opening words the emphasis is on the creatureliness of these mighty beasts: "Look at Behemoth, my creature, just as you are!" (Job 40:15). Job has a trait in common with these animals: all have come from God's hand. They are, as it were, holdovers from the chaos out of which the world, the cosmos, emerged. Because of his undeserved suffering, Job sees existence as a chaos, a continuation of the original disorder. God is trying to show Job that divine power controls these chaotic forces, although at the same time God says that they will not be destroyed. They represent the wicked of whom God has just been speaking (Job 40:11–13); they are forces existing in the world. The Lord does not forthwith put an end to these remnants of the original chaos (into which Job has

Thus It Was

I am being driven forward into an unknown land. The pass grows steeper, the air colder and sharper. A wind from my unknown goal stirs the strings of expectation. Still the question: Shall I ever get there? There where life resounds, a clear pure note in the silence.

Paradise Lost and Regained

[The angel answered], "Dream not of their fight as of a duel, nor [physical the] wounds of head or heel: [these do not] join the Son human to Godhead, with more strength to foil your enemy. Nor so is [Satan killed,] whose fall from Heaven, [deadlier a] bruise, disabled not to give you your death's wound, which [Christ], who comes your savior, shall [repair], not by destroying Satan, but, [in you and in your seed, destroying Satan's works.] .... [Triumphing] o'er his foes [will Christ] surprise the Serpent, Prince of Air, and drag in chains through all his realm, and there confounded leave. Then Christ will enter glory, and resume his seat at God's right hand, exalted high above all names in Heaven; then shall come when this world's dissolution shall be ripe.

How Did We Get Here

I got a feeling I can't describe: I see this place when I close my eyes. Wake me up if we ever arrive. And tell me how did we, How did we get here?

Live Enchanted, Beyond Control

I'm connected in a daze, Roam unconscious disengaged. In a simulated world I sustain. Swimming senseless through a void, Ease my appetite with noise. In a stimulated world Go insane. Shadow in a matrix, Searching for a light. Captive of the jungle, Hiding in the night. Break me free to live enchanted. Enchanted, Beyond control. Hide me, hide me. Hide me in your mystery. Break me free to live enchanted. Enchanted, Beyond control.

Nostalgia for Our Far-Off Country

...In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence...

Behind the Impossible

Train us, Lord, to fling ourselves upon the impossible, for behind the impossible is your grace and your presence; we cannot fall into emptiness. The future is an enigma, our road is covered by mist, but we want to go on giving ourselves, because you continue hoping amid the night and weeping tears through a thousand human eyes.

Inseparable

... (not that love and truth are ever finally separable).

Who Am I?

Am I really what others say about me? Or am I only what I know about myself? Restless, melancholic, and ill, like a caged bird, struggling for breath, as if hands clasped my throat, hungry for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds, thirsty for friendly words and human kindness, shaking with anger at fate and at the smallest sickness, trembling for friends at an infinite distance, tired and empty at praying, at thinking, at doing, drained and ready to say goodbye to it all. .... Or is there something in me like a battered army, running in disorder from a victory already won?

A Horizon of Service and Communion

...God’s gift is not an easy hope. But as fragile as it may seem, it is capable of planting roots in the world of social insignificance, in the world of the poor, and of breaking out and remaining creative and alive even in the midst of difficult situations....Paul Ricoeur says that theology is born at the intersection of “a space of experience” and “a horizon of hope.” It is a space where Jesus invites us to follow him in encountering the other, especially the “smallest” of his brothers and sisters—and to follow him in the hope that in this encounter, which is open to every person, believer or unbeliever, we will stand within the horizon of service to the other and in communion with the Lord...

The First Flaker of Flints

There should be monuments, there should be odes, to the nameless heroes who took it first, to the first flaker of flints who forgot his dinner, the first collector of sea-shells to remain celibate.