Wednesday, August 29, 2012

NYC for those given to idleness

“New York loves expanse. It grows upward and spreads its tentacles outward, the island spilling into adjoining lands through its many bridges and tunnels. A person given to idleness, as Parvis has come to think of himself, must move about for the sake of moving, if only to fit into the general scheme of things – an electron obeying the current. Tantamount to movement, he has come to realize, is self-reliance, a fact reflected in the language: 'Take care,' a friend may say to another as the two part. In his old life the same two friends would have said to one another, khodahfez – 'may God protect you.'"

// Dalia Sofer, The Septembers of Shiraz

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

scaffolding

For the followers of the crucified Messiah, the main message of the imprecatory Psalms is this: rage belongs before God (Janowski 1995, 173)–not in the reflectively managed and manicured form of a confession, but as a pre-reflective outburst from the depths of the soul. This is no mere cathartic discharge of pent up aggression before the Almighty who ought to care. Much more significantly, by placing unattended rage before God we place both our unjust enemy and our own vengeful self face to face with a God who loves and does justice. Hidden in the dark chambers of our hearts and nourished by the system of darkness, hate grows and seeks to infest everything with its hellish will to exclusion. In the light of the justice and love of God, however, hate recedes and the seed is planted for the miracle of forgiveness. Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion–without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness. // Volf

Friday, August 10, 2012

in Sabah insha'Allah




in Sabah.
the Smiles that melted
the Stitches that mended
my heart.

frayed, frozen heart,
forget him not!
insha'Allah.


finally got around to revisiting/uploading SLR pictures from last summer. it is good to remember.
welcomed laura to the city today.

Friday, August 3, 2012

On this great thrill of possibility.

Dear Little Sheepish Heart,


No matter how it goes, remember this out-of-body, forward facing elation and hope and gratitude, after how well the interview for the job of your dreams just went. Remember daring to hope that your Father just maybe could be that generous. Remember being injected with such foreign joy, at the mere lick of the possibility...

Remember, He didn't just propose, He promised, and you will know with certainty His certain Yes!es soon. Remember, He did not withhold his Son!

Remember the fuzzy faraway forms, of how He's so laboriously been making you into a trustworthy steward of gifts only He could have willed, coming into slightly sharper focus today. Remember how enslaved you would be if you could boast in these gifts, how enslaved you were when you did.

Remember He feeds you, and He discerns what to you for such a time as this is bread and what for you at another season can only be stones, despite your propensity to confuse the two and to chomp on pebbles. Imagine, if you are thankful for the broken road even now, how you will marvel on that day when He unveils just how just He has been all along. Remember how you glanced backward today and saw a straight path behind you, and an adventure before you. Remember how in these dark weeks, amidst your forgetful fretting, He remembered His mercies, He remembers His children.


And rejoice!