Monday, October 20, 2008

It is we who have suffered

I've been thinking about these words for a few days:

God is searchlessly great. We hear and read of His greatness but it is quite another matter to live it, this greatness. No one and nothing can in any way diminish His eternal Sovereignty but He, even God, made Himself lowly to a degree that we cannot understand: in our frail flesh He attained absoluteness. Now I know from my own experience: He hungers for our perfection. In sanctioning our grievous struggle against the enemy and against our own selves in our fallen state, He would have us victorious. If we do not abandon Him in the worst moments of our humiliation by the enemy, He will most certainly come to us. He is the conqueror, not we. But He will attribute the victory to us, because it is we who have suffered. (Fr. Sophrony, We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 84)

Friday, October 17, 2008

Short revisit of Clouser and the Cappadocians

I really don't have time for this right now, since I have final papers due this weekend and I'm running a little behind, but I felt I should mention what I have found out concerning Clouser's view of the attributes/energies of God. (Perhaps more will follow later, but I wouldn't count on it!)

As I have read further in his book The Myth of Religious Neutrality, I am frankly confused about his position on whether God's energies are created or uncreated. He makes a distinction between three different definitions of the word "created," and I find it is possible on the basis of this distinction to read him as agreeing (mostly) with the Cappadocian/Orthodox view on this. Clouser doesn't come right out and says that God's attributes, though distinct from his nature, are fully divine, and I see this as a weakness (and perhaps a serious flaw) in his thinking. But I was hasty in my previous post on this topic, and I thought honesty demanded I admit that. (The first section of my previous post stands as written, however.) Sure makes my paper that much harder to write!!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Even after 8 kids



Proud Daddy


A huge slimy slug, he crosses the floor
leaving slobber trails for the unsuspecting
barefoot traveler, constantly grinning
as if he already knows the joy of
a well-planned practical joke. How can this
wriggling bundle of spit and skin provoke
such profound love in me, bringing me
out of myself? He can't even say my name,
yet I know him and he knows me, and the
bond of our souls is beyond speech. As I
lean close to his dimpled face all heaven
breaks loose; like the chorus of a thousand
angels his smile drowns out all chaos, and every
gloomy thought vanishes is the radiance
of breathtaking innocence and beauty.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Now here's something interesting


I wrote a paper for a literature class this session on Hawthorne's short story "The Minister's Black Veil." That turned out OK, but my professor gave us the additional assignment of putting together a PowerPoint presentation to go along with our paper. I was having a problem finding a picture of a minister with a black veil--yeah, I know, you'd think with all the crap on the Internet someone would have a picture like this, but nothing doing. So, with the help of my son (the photographer), my black leather hat, a black overcoat, and a couple of well-placed tissues--The Reverend Mr. Hooper comes to life!