"A Problem From Hell" - Stuff About Genocide

A Role for Light in Darkness

Scattered over the vast and

Vividly hued canvas of human history,

Are the expansive, black and corrosive stains of genocide.

Chillingly

With few exceptions

Christian light within those broad pools of darkness

Spattered in and out chaotically

A few isolated dots

Distinguished mostly by complicitous,

Cool gradations of gray.

Why not purifying light?

Steadfast, blindingly brilliant-

Hot penetrating pools of white radiance

Inexorably consuming the oppressive darkness

Restoring the fouled canvas surrounding us?

(r.s.g. 1/04)

………………………………………………………………………………………………

If you falter in times of trouble,

how small is your strength!

Rescue those being led away to death;

Hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"

Does not He who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not He who guards your life know it?

Will He not repay each person according to what He has done?

Proverbs 24:10-12 (NIV)

Thoughts From Others...

Ignatius of Antioch
During His Martyrdom
(117 AD)

I Am The Wheat of God,
And Let Me Be Ground Up
By The Teeth of Wild Beasts,
That I May Be Found The Pure Bread of Christ...
...Let Fire and The Cross;
Let The Crowds of Wild Beasts;
Let Tearings, Breakings and Dislocations of Bones;
Let Cutting Off of Members;
Let Shatterings of The Whole Body;
And Let All The Dreadful Tortures of The Devil Come Upon Me;
Only Let Me Get To Christ


If your heart is free from ill-ordered affection, no good deed will be difficult for you. - Thoms a' Kempis


What The Soul Is In The Body,
That Christians Are In The World

Epistle to Diognetus 130 AD

The Heart is Stretched Through Suffering
And Enlarged

But O' The Agony of This Enlarging of the Heart,
That One May Be Prepared To Enter Into
The Anguish Of Another.

Thomas R. Kelly - A Testament of Devotion

It Has Been Rightly Written That 'uno mystica' (Mystical Union With Christ) Is The Heart of Calvin's Spirituality

John Tyson


BELIEVING WHAT WE SAY WE BELIEVE:

Soren Kierkegaard once said: "Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in their great systematic structure. Metaphorically speaking, a person's ideas must be the building he lives in --- otherwise there is something terribly wrong

Ongoing Thoughts... a.k.a. My Personal "Pensess"

Socialism....

Socialism Works Well 

Only For Those
Who Have Lost Their Will

In The End It 

Allows For Victims To Survive
And Survivors To Become Victims


SPIRITUAL PATHOLOGY
A Life Issue 

By Which You Are You Are
Dually: Driven 

By Fear and Motivated By Hope
At The Same Time
r.s.g. 5/15/08
WatershedsThere Are Two Great Movements, or Watersheds Within The Christian Faith: 

These Have To Do With Salvation and Discipleship...

Each Side of These Watersheds  Shape Our Individual Faith... Life Long...

Shape The Nature of The Institutional Church Within The World To Choose the One, 
Versus the Second, Can Mean The Difference Between That Which is 

Spiritually Vapid and That Which Embraces the Essence of Life and Eternity 

Itself

Salvation: 1. You Are Either "Saved From Hell" or, 2. Saved To Christ"


Discipleship: 1. Taught to Merely "Manage Your Sin" or, 2 Devoted Yourself to "Become 

Like Christ"

The Seeking of The First Only Never Ensures The Outcome of the Second...

Blow-Back in Burden Sharing

"When Taking The Deep Inner Walk
Into Another Person's Life
To Help Them Confront Their Depravity, Brokenness and Woundedness

Their Insidious Darkness That Troubled Them
Tends To Rub Off, And Can Now Trouble You...

It Becomes Yours...

It Sticks, Morphs and Becomes "Meaningful"

To Those Ways That Are Insidiously Particular... To YOU Only

This is What Is Meant, In No Small Significant Part

'To Bear One Another's Burdens'"

r.s.g.
02-/19/2008

When Discussing "Hell," And While Talking To People About Coming to Christ... Remember...

Jesus Christ Stands On The Merit Of Who He Is
And If That Is Not Sufficient
Then Why Should Hell Be Any Better?

r.s.g.
02/12/05


Your Past Unfolds Before You
Your Future Lies Rooted In Your Past

r.s.g.


You Are Done With Your Past
But Your Past Is Not Done With You

Film: Magnolia


Whatever is Has Already Been,
And What Will Be Has Been Before,
And God Will Call The Past To Account

Eccl. 3:15


You Make Your Choices
And Your Choices Make You

Then... Your Choices Make Others

r.s.g




Beauty Is The Only Apologetic
For God
For Which The Experience Is All That Is Needed
And Words Are Not Necessary

r.s.g. 12/14/05






Most People Live For Those Ways In Which They Are Dying
Rather Than Dying To Those Ways In Order To Live

r.s.g. 03/06/06


There Is Enough Of The Image Of God In Us
To Know That Things Are Not As They Should Be
There Is Not Enough Of The Image Of God Left
To Know How To Fix It.

Therefore We Intuitively And Instinctively Gravitate
Towards Those Things In Life
That Most Resemble That We Sense We Are Missing

The List Is Endless.. Desperately We Self-Medicate
The Results Not Withstanding

r.s.g. 2004


Sumul Estes Et Pecater

"Simultaneously Sinful and Justified"

Martin Luther



You Are Your Actions
But Your One Action Is Not All That You Are

or

I Am My Sin
But My One Sin Is Not All That I Am

r.s.g. 2005

"Heaven's Glowing Fire" And Authentic Relationships

Years ago in his lecture on Blessed Community, Quaker Philosopher Thomas R. Kelly said: "Fellowship searches friendships, burning, dissolving, ennobling, transfiguring them in Heaven's glowing fire."

I think all hearts yearn to know and to be known... To have the privilege of being invited into the deep parts of another person's life; as well as to be able to invite another into the deep parts of ours. Its been my experience, that even the best of our friends and family, never really know more than 85% of who we really are... It's amazing how that last 15% can really get in the way...

Innately, if we are honest, we all long for the kind of "fellowship" that burns, dissolves and ennobles us, in order that we might be "transfigured" and become what we should have been in the first place... i.e. pre-Fall. The longing to know and to be known, for the Christian, is always the call to participate substantively in authentic community. The pathway to "heaven's glowing fire" is the shorter, but more painful path, is the one that runs directly through it.