Jonah 2:1-10
Prayer of Jonah while inside the big fish. Contrast with Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:31-46 Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:39-53, John 17:1-26)
Content of prayer similar to Psalm 40
Jonah 3:1-10
v.1-2 The second time God spoke. Apparently the fish was a subtle hint to Jonah. Exact same commands, exact same words dictating Jonah to go to Nineveh.
-What levels of irony exist that the 'fish' would be a symbol of early Christians? Drawn in the dirt for believers to see and know things were safe?
v.3- Jonah obeyed to the letter...Nineveh was big enough to take three days to travel...how many miles would that be?
v.4 - Jonah's message was simple and just proclaimed destruction. There was no exhortation to repent, no salvation message...no acknowledgment that there would even be a means to avoid the destruction. It was pure fire and brimstone.
v.5 - A city wide fast was held, people believed that God cared, cared about them and wanting repentance
Jonah 4:1-11
Thursday, July 23, 2009
John 15
"I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
"I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.
"You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another.
"If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.
"When that happens, remember this: Servants don't get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.
"They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me. If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. Hate me, hate my Father—it's all the same. If I hadn't done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn't be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father. Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, 'They hated me for no good reason.'
"When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start."
"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
"I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.
"You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another.
"If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.
"When that happens, remember this: Servants don't get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.
"They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me. If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. Hate me, hate my Father—it's all the same. If I hadn't done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn't be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father. Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, 'They hated me for no good reason.'
"When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start."
Just a thought...
Would it be possible to do the lyrical styling of Bob Dylan meets the musical scope of Nine Inch Nails?
Any takers?
Anyone?
Any takers?
Anyone?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
"Out of Control" - U2
Monday morning
Eighteen years of dawning
I said how long
Said how long
It was one dull morning
I woke the world with bawling
I was so sad
They were so glad
I was of the feeling
It was out of control
I had the opinion it was
Out of control
Boys and girls
Go to school, and girls
They make children
Not like this one
I was of the feeling
I was out of control
I had the opinion it was
Out of control
I'm out of control
You say
Out of control
I'm out of control
Out of control
Out of control
Out of control
I fought fate
There's blood at the garden gate
The man said childhood
It's in his childhood
One day I'll die
The choice will not be mine
Will it be too late
You can't fight fate
I was of the feeling
It was out of control
I had the opinion
It was out of control
Eighteen years of dawning
I said how long
Said how long
It was one dull morning
I woke the world with bawling
I was so sad
They were so glad
I was of the feeling
It was out of control
I had the opinion it was
Out of control
Boys and girls
Go to school, and girls
They make children
Not like this one
I was of the feeling
I was out of control
I had the opinion it was
Out of control
I'm out of control
You say
Out of control
I'm out of control
Out of control
Out of control
Out of control
I fought fate
There's blood at the garden gate
The man said childhood
It's in his childhood
One day I'll die
The choice will not be mine
Will it be too late
You can't fight fate
I was of the feeling
It was out of control
I had the opinion
It was out of control
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
N.L. Church Notes 7-20-09
Postmodernism...oh joy. >_<
Epistemology - how one reaches 'the truth'
Unless truth is formed by being given or what you reject.
Recognizing different places/persons/things which help give us negative formations of truth...political, religious...peoples and groups that hold their version as superior and champion that cause...whether consciously or otherwise.
It's easy to relapse into false notions of God if we do not think critically as to why we believe and think.
Exodus 32:1-6, 21-24, 35
-Part where Moses goes up to get the Ten Commandments and is taking 'too long'. The Israelite had been waiting 400 years in slavery...but they get bored and ask for Aaron (Moses' brother) to make them an idol. And Aaron made a golden calf idol (which they were familiar with in Egypt...they adopted a false cultural god because they were not getting what they wanted when they wanted from their idea of God).
-Postmodernism...a post is the reaction to the base word of the phrase...it is a reaction to modernism; the period of historical development where we had a way of thinking, started in the 14th century with the Renaissance, to the 17th the Enlightenment...the idea is that there WAS objective reality...truth that could be discovered...truth could be missed and found...one's job was to find that truth.
-All opinions are held as the same.
-Pluralism society is allowing all thoughts to be treated equal...popular notion is that all options and thoughts are correct.
-Faith...more like a favorite song or the number of jelly beans in a jar?
-It is like the jelly beans...an absolute and concrete idea that we may not get exact but is real.
-You have to have a universal God to have a personal God...otherwise he is merely pop thought.
Individualized truth 2 Corinthians 11:3-4
-The deception of Eve in the garden.
-Genesis 3, 'knowing good and evil'...truth and understanding beyond God, a truth that is personal
-Intimacy is created by exclusivity. True love can only be built on a individual level. Allowing 'idols' to get between our relationship with God makes things shallow and empty.
-John 1 - personal Jesus
1 Corinthians 1:2; 2:2
-The oneness of the church is based on the Blood of Christ...everything we believe is based on Jesus, his death and resurrection...John 14:6...who is Jesus? How does he bridge this gap between us and God...and makes thing REAL, PERSONAL...regardless of our belief and doubt.
-If we are freed by the love, the intimacy with Jesus...then we are not threatened by differences and people being who they are.
-Moderates in the sense of being flippiant with a relationship...nay...being moderate and willing to think outside the box...yay.
-Being like Jesus...loving people just as they are...showing love and not letting differences stop us from being friends and showing love.
-Nothing they do effects what we believe...when we are exclusive in our relationship with God we're freed to love people with NO conditions.
-Different perspectives make things more beautiful...true believers are taught by anyone and everything.
-The objectivity of Christianity isn't to win but to love.
-God is the God of everyone.
-Everything has two sides but it is like flypaper, it all depends on which side the fly lands on. Only one side allows true freedom.
Matthew 28:18-20
-Always wish us.
-All authority and with us.
** ** **
Thought:
Lord, you have shown you are a constant presence in my life by being...by creating, loving and carrying me through the night.
** ** **
My own personal problem, as I try to define it, is with the religious Christian. I see them setting up walls to keep people out...and I want to run and avoid real relationships with them so that I won't have to have my prejudices challenged.
My personal prejudices is taking a beating to the face with a baseball bat.
I hate religious speech, I hate double talk, I hate the jargon...so much that I let myself hate the people...even though I do not know them or what they could be thinking or doing. I am trying to play angry God throwing down wrath...a preconceived false idol that pretends to love while backstabbing at a moment's notice.
The problem is that this Jesus...this Jesus I've been talking to for nearly fifteen years...is demanding. Freedom requires the sacrifice of my mind...soul..my very being...it requires I lay down my rage, down my arms and allow myself to be loved.
It is so true that intimacy...true, vivid intimacy can only occur on a one on one basis...with honesty and sincerity...and I am the master of what I hate. I despise people who do double talk because it flows so easily...I weave lies so convincingly that I no longer know the truth...who is who...what is what...it's such a tangled web that I want to just burn everything and run away.
I want peace...peace that goes beyond understand...that goes beyond my fallacy and instead allows love to change...divine and intoxicating love...that goes beyond words, phrases, fallen human constructs...and digs to the matter of my broken heart.
If I can pray it is for freedom from myself, my slow lingering death at the hands of self...it's hard to sit here and I would rather run to noise...but silence the noise and still my rapidly beating heart...wipe away the tears and soothe the ache...just let things be...let things be as You will.
I need this consistency...Your constant love...Your constant grace.
I'm so tired of fighting this loosing fight...just help me to give up these shreds of a life that is holding me back. I have dug my hole and built my tower...they are nothing but scratches in the dirt and a few rocks piled on each other...like a certain pair of sisters in that story...my will be done has lead to me laying here dying...precious Lamb...one who has already spilled His blood...is there forgiveness enough for yet another lost one?
Can You, will You still carry me?
I'm too weak to stand and the nausea is a Hell...can you carry me out of this and help me to face the day?
Epistemology - how one reaches 'the truth'
Unless truth is formed by being given or what you reject.
Recognizing different places/persons/things which help give us negative formations of truth...political, religious...peoples and groups that hold their version as superior and champion that cause...whether consciously or otherwise.
It's easy to relapse into false notions of God if we do not think critically as to why we believe and think.
Exodus 32:1-6, 21-24, 35
-Part where Moses goes up to get the Ten Commandments and is taking 'too long'. The Israelite had been waiting 400 years in slavery...but they get bored and ask for Aaron (Moses' brother) to make them an idol. And Aaron made a golden calf idol (which they were familiar with in Egypt...they adopted a false cultural god because they were not getting what they wanted when they wanted from their idea of God).
-Postmodernism...a post is the reaction to the base word of the phrase...it is a reaction to modernism; the period of historical development where we had a way of thinking, started in the 14th century with the Renaissance, to the 17th the Enlightenment...the idea is that there WAS objective reality...truth that could be discovered...truth could be missed and found...one's job was to find that truth.
-All opinions are held as the same.
-Pluralism society is allowing all thoughts to be treated equal...popular notion is that all options and thoughts are correct.
-Faith...more like a favorite song or the number of jelly beans in a jar?
-It is like the jelly beans...an absolute and concrete idea that we may not get exact but is real.
-You have to have a universal God to have a personal God...otherwise he is merely pop thought.
Individualized truth 2 Corinthians 11:3-4
-The deception of Eve in the garden.
-Genesis 3, 'knowing good and evil'...truth and understanding beyond God, a truth that is personal
-Intimacy is created by exclusivity. True love can only be built on a individual level. Allowing 'idols' to get between our relationship with God makes things shallow and empty.
-John 1 - personal Jesus
1 Corinthians 1:2; 2:2
-The oneness of the church is based on the Blood of Christ...everything we believe is based on Jesus, his death and resurrection...John 14:6...who is Jesus? How does he bridge this gap between us and God...and makes thing REAL, PERSONAL...regardless of our belief and doubt.
-If we are freed by the love, the intimacy with Jesus...then we are not threatened by differences and people being who they are.
-Moderates in the sense of being flippiant with a relationship...nay...being moderate and willing to think outside the box...yay.
-Being like Jesus...loving people just as they are...showing love and not letting differences stop us from being friends and showing love.
-Nothing they do effects what we believe...when we are exclusive in our relationship with God we're freed to love people with NO conditions.
-Different perspectives make things more beautiful...true believers are taught by anyone and everything.
-The objectivity of Christianity isn't to win but to love.
-God is the God of everyone.
-Everything has two sides but it is like flypaper, it all depends on which side the fly lands on. Only one side allows true freedom.
Matthew 28:18-20
-Always wish us.
-All authority and with us.
** ** **
Thought:
Lord, you have shown you are a constant presence in my life by being...by creating, loving and carrying me through the night.
** ** **
My own personal problem, as I try to define it, is with the religious Christian. I see them setting up walls to keep people out...and I want to run and avoid real relationships with them so that I won't have to have my prejudices challenged.
My personal prejudices is taking a beating to the face with a baseball bat.
I hate religious speech, I hate double talk, I hate the jargon...so much that I let myself hate the people...even though I do not know them or what they could be thinking or doing. I am trying to play angry God throwing down wrath...a preconceived false idol that pretends to love while backstabbing at a moment's notice.
The problem is that this Jesus...this Jesus I've been talking to for nearly fifteen years...is demanding. Freedom requires the sacrifice of my mind...soul..my very being...it requires I lay down my rage, down my arms and allow myself to be loved.
It is so true that intimacy...true, vivid intimacy can only occur on a one on one basis...with honesty and sincerity...and I am the master of what I hate. I despise people who do double talk because it flows so easily...I weave lies so convincingly that I no longer know the truth...who is who...what is what...it's such a tangled web that I want to just burn everything and run away.
I want peace...peace that goes beyond understand...that goes beyond my fallacy and instead allows love to change...divine and intoxicating love...that goes beyond words, phrases, fallen human constructs...and digs to the matter of my broken heart.
If I can pray it is for freedom from myself, my slow lingering death at the hands of self...it's hard to sit here and I would rather run to noise...but silence the noise and still my rapidly beating heart...wipe away the tears and soothe the ache...just let things be...let things be as You will.
I need this consistency...Your constant love...Your constant grace.
I'm so tired of fighting this loosing fight...just help me to give up these shreds of a life that is holding me back. I have dug my hole and built my tower...they are nothing but scratches in the dirt and a few rocks piled on each other...like a certain pair of sisters in that story...my will be done has lead to me laying here dying...precious Lamb...one who has already spilled His blood...is there forgiveness enough for yet another lost one?
Can You, will You still carry me?
I'm too weak to stand and the nausea is a Hell...can you carry me out of this and help me to face the day?
Sunday, July 19, 2009
"Invictus" - Brave Saint Saturn
I've been breaking my back
Only to show You how very lost one can be
And bitterness fires through me
The brilliance that was is flickering cold
Slowly burning to ash
I'm choking on pride, I'm closing my eyes
Till one day I'm scared to go back
You part the shadows
Light of the world
Destroy the blindness
Peace eternal
Take this broken heart
If it brings You praise
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'
You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable
Take this broken heart
If it brings you praise
(You part the shadows)
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
(Light of the world)
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
(Destroy the blindness)
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'
(Peace eternal)
You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable
I've been breaking my back
Only to show You how very lost one can be
Only to show You how very lost one can be
And bitterness fires through me
The brilliance that was is flickering cold
Slowly burning to ash
I'm choking on pride, I'm closing my eyes
Till one day I'm scared to go back
You part the shadows
Light of the world
Destroy the blindness
Peace eternal
Take this broken heart
If it brings You praise
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'
You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable
Take this broken heart
If it brings you praise
(You part the shadows)
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
(Light of the world)
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
(Destroy the blindness)
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'
(Peace eternal)
You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable
I've been breaking my back
Only to show You how very lost one can be
Esoteric Playground
This is me and this is you.
I'm hoping for peace and praying for understanding.
I'm even sure about...about...
I'm just not sure.
The more I hear this the further
the further the confusion.
Good God, when does this end?
I'm carrying poison in my veins,
playing at being Messiah
while carrying this broken hope.
Lies I can never cease to love
as I long to break free,
run free
into some hope.
Freedom from hate,
freedom from lies
freedom from the pain.
και εστιν αυτη η αγγελια ην ακηκοαμεν απ αυτου και αναγγελλομεν υμιν οτι ο θεος φως εστιν και σκοτια ουκ εστιν εν αυτω ουδεμια
Such lofty hope.
I'm hoping for peace and praying for understanding.
I'm even sure about...about...
I'm just not sure.
The more I hear this the further
the further the confusion.
Good God, when does this end?
I'm carrying poison in my veins,
playing at being Messiah
while carrying this broken hope.
Lies I can never cease to love
as I long to break free,
run free
into some hope.
Freedom from hate,
freedom from lies
freedom from the pain.
και εστιν αυτη η αγγελια ην ακηκοαμεν απ αυτου και αναγγελλομεν υμιν οτι ο θεος φως εστιν και σκοτια ουκ εστιν εν αυτω ουδεμια
Such lofty hope.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Compromising Thoughts
It is annoying how this vow...this promise...is almost a noose around me...not a bit guiding me but something that starts to choke me when I try to run.
Divine Love, so intoxicating...incomparable and no person can hope to understand.
I feel it in music...this rage...this desire; all of these revised and revived intoxicating lies mixed with hope.
It's so easy to step out of my skin on here and be a stranger...it's a refuge of sort...but I forget who I am, who the real me is outside of these false identities.
I wish i could rip my heart out so I could just give it to You fully, no more lies...no more fallacy driven compromise.
You really should sing angel, sing through your uncompromisable compromise.
What does it mean to be human?
Really human?
What has defined the terms?
How did You expect things to fall?
I'm tired of existential dread.
Will you let me cash it in with my desires in exchange for blood?
Divine Love, so intoxicating...incomparable and no person can hope to understand.
I feel it in music...this rage...this desire; all of these revised and revived intoxicating lies mixed with hope.
It's so easy to step out of my skin on here and be a stranger...it's a refuge of sort...but I forget who I am, who the real me is outside of these false identities.
I wish i could rip my heart out so I could just give it to You fully, no more lies...no more fallacy driven compromise.
You really should sing angel, sing through your uncompromisable compromise.
What does it mean to be human?
Really human?
What has defined the terms?
How did You expect things to fall?
I'm tired of existential dread.
Will you let me cash it in with my desires in exchange for blood?
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tryst Today
Some Lou Reed and thoughts of you.
Walking in and out of mind
while going up on a sugar trip.
Wanting to go here and there
not knowing where you might be.
Just wanting to take this walk
right out on the wild side,
maybe in boots or just lies.
Walking in and out of mind
while going up on a sugar trip.
Wanting to go here and there
not knowing where you might be.
Just wanting to take this walk
right out on the wild side,
maybe in boots or just lies.
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