Ten Thousand Places

On By J. Barrett LeeIn poetry3 Comments

I don’t have a reason for posting this picture.  I just found online somewhere in recent months and I like it.  It speaks to me of the presence of the divine (Matthew Fox might say “Cosmic Christ”) in all corners of the universe, even in the deepest parts of the Earth.  I see it as a blessing.  May it be so.

As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, “Christ plays in ten thousand places”.

Aw, what the heck, I’ll just go ahead and post the whole poem:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173654 on June 3, 2012.

How to Get Rid of Your Minister

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Photo by Petr Kratochvil

This was adapted from Rev. John Roberts of First Baptist Church in Sterling, CO.

You can read the original version by clicking here.

Idea No. 1: During the Sunday morning message, listen closely and take notes. Look your minister straight in the eye, and occasionally nod your head and say, “Amen!” Begin to make serious efforts to apply the life lessons you learn from the sermons. In six months, she’ll preach herself to death.

Idea No. 2: Pat your minister on the back and brag on her good points two or three times a month. Make a bunch of phone calls to your friends and neighbors and tell them all the good things about your minister. In a little while, so many more people will start coming to your church, you’ll have to hire an associate minister, and your senior minister will be free to leave.

Idea No. 3: Next Sunday, in response to the sermon, dedicate yourself to something you believe in. Then make an appointment with your minister sometime next week. Ask her to give you some job you could do for the church. She’ll likely die of heart failure on the spot.

Idea No. 4: Get a whole bunch of the church members to unite in earnest prayer for your minister, her ministry and her family. Organize prayer meetings in which you pray for the growth of the church and the blessing of the community. Your minister may become so effective in ministry that some larger church will gladly take her off your hands.

One note of caution, however: if you try one of these methods, you may find that you don’t want to get rid of your minister after all.

Eclipse

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

–Pink Floyd, Eclipse

Bone

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Re-blogged from the United Church of Christ’s Stillspeaking daily devotional.

Original source:

http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/daily-devotional/bone.html

Excerpt from Ezekiel 37:1-14

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones…I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Here’s what the story says: dry bones are not the final state of things.  Death will not win.  Here’s what it says: life wins.

Here’s what it doesn’t say: that they were human bones.  Or that those bones went back together in their original order.  Or that the bodies at the end were the same as the bodies in the beginning.

We tell this story as if it’s only about humans, as if we’re the only species God loves enough to waste the energy on.  But this is the God that notes the fall of every sparrow, right?  Surely God noted the fall of every pterodactyl.  Surely, God noticed the fate of the hominid Australopithecus afarensis just as fully as he does that of the hominid Homo sapiens.

99% of all the different species that once lived are now extinct.  And yet, the place is full of life.  Why?  Because God does not let extinction win.  The dinosaurs go down to bones and molecules, and the mammals rise up to take their place.  Homo habilis goes extinct, and up rises Homo sapiens.  One very particular Homo sapiens goes down to dust, and rises up the King of Heaven.

Death happens, but so does resurrection.  Extinction happens, but so does evolution.  And if our bones fit together differently when we walk out of the valley than when we walked in, maybe that’s not so bad.  I mean, you’re better looking than Paranthropus boisei any day.

Prayer

For evolution, thank you.  For resurrection, thank you.  For not giving me a protruding brow ridge and shallow brain pan, thank you, thank you, thank you.  Amen.

The New Theism: Shedding Beliefs, Celebrating Knowledge

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Evolutionary Thoughts3 Comments

Re-blogged from evolutionarychristianity.com

Interesting ideas.  Kind of feeling it…

Since April 2002, my science-writer wife Connie Barlow and I have traveled North America virtually non-stop. We have addressed more than 1,600 secular and religious groups of all kinds. Our goal is to communicate the inspiring and empowering side of science to as many people as possible…

(Click to read the full article)

Cherish Your Doubts

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth.
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error,
for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.
Let no man fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it;
for doubt is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.
He that would silence doubt is filled with fear;
the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands.
But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock.
He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge;
the work of his hands shall endure.
Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.

-Robert T. Weston, from Hymns for the Celebration of Life

Found at http://revdawn.wordpress.com/2012/05/