Posted in reseña on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
W.B. Johnson’s and K. Murray’s Crazy Love: dealing with your partner’s problem personality is a grim treatise.
The volume majors in realism, not hope. More often than not, the authors’ counsel is that you will not survive the partner to whom you have tied your soul, life, checkbook, and destiny. It may be best to get out while there is some gettin’ to be had. (more…)
Posted in Americana, music, tagged Bluegrass, music on March 28, 2010| 1 Comment »
Somewhere in an interval between sets by The Harmans, Donna Ulisse & the Poor Mountain Boys, Balsam Range, the bodacious Monroe Crossing, and the Josh Wiliams Band, some errant soul ventured the observation that you can line up the same five instruments multiple times at an event like this one and the sound will be completely different every time.
Welcome to Bluegrass! (more…)
Posted in por invitación on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
En los últimos tiempos se ha dado un debate respecto a la existencia del controversial ministerio apostólico, y sobre el orden jerárquico que ostentan quienes pretenden utilizar este título dentro del liderazgo. Incluso, he escuchado que al parecer, ahora encontramos una nueva figura ministerial llamado: ‘Padre Espiritual’. Estos creen que pueden estar por encima de los apóstoles. En otras palabras, brindan cobertura y son los ‘apóstoles de apóstoles’. Sin embargo, no es mi intención unirme a ese debate (aunque ganas me sobran) sino animar la reflexión basado en lo que encontramos en Dios y en su Palabra.
Normalmente cuando se analizan estos temas, nos dirigimos a los pasajes de Efesios 4 o 1 Corintios 12, que nos muestra una lista de dones y ministerios. Podemos afirmar que estos ministerios existen desde la perspectiva divina, pero me parece que estamos olvidando el propósito por el cuál fueron dados y nos hemos apropiado de estos como si fueran de nuestra posesión. (more…)
Posted in denkschrift on March 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
In his fine essay in the March 2010 number of Christianity Today, Darren C. Marks (‘The Mind Under Grace. Why theology is an essential nutrient for spiritual growth’) articulates an assumption that both modernist and post-modernist ‘true believers’ might well find startling: ‘Scripture interrogates the community’.
Marks pens his essay a defense of ‘dry’ theology against that contemporary hubris that insists we honor Relevance above all other gods.
Living with the penetrating, unsettling interrogatives of Scripture strikes me as an almost sufficient abbreviation of Christian faith and practice. If the elevation of the subject is our generation’s besetting sin, then the ‘satanic’ (as in ‘questioning’, ‘probing’, ‘skeptical’, even ‘accusing’) voice of Scripture may be the salvation we most desperately require.
Not that portion of Scripture that we find reducible to articulation in the too often caricatured bumper sticker or painted artfully into Tim Tebo’s eye black, but that comprehensive encounter with Scripture that requires us to submit to Leviticus’ apparent tedium, Samuel’s heroics, the gospels’ unsophisticated presentation of history’s most sophisticated figure, and Paul’s agonizing against Israel’s experience in Romans 9-11.
In short, the whole body of Scripture must interrogate us.
We might imagine that inspiration and anecdote can inspire us sufficiently to escape that sucking swamp that has us, up to the thighs, in its grasp.
That would be a tragic underestimation of our condition.
Only by embracing Scriptures comprehensive, unending, humiliating, empowering interrogation can we have any hope of escaping ourselves, of finding salvation from ourselves, of breaking free from the hubris that enslaves us while we piously quote our favorite parts.
Posted in por invitación on March 24, 2010| 1 Comment »
Amigos, unas breves palabras en memoria de un pastor del pueblo: Monseñor Romero.
Hoy hace 30 años la historia de América Latina jamás volvió a ser la misma. Hoy hace 30 años moría en medio del destello de las balas asesinas un profeta del pueblo.
Murió abrazando no su causa, sino la causa de Jesús por amor a las personas más vulnerables. Murió sencillamente porque su voz fue molestar para algunos, cuando él solamente decidió ser megáfono humano; pastor que reprodujo los gritos de dolor, humillación y vejación de un pueblo reprimido.
Al igual que el Maestro estaba consciente que no ‘había mayor amor que dar la vida por el bienestar de otros’. Y Así fue como vivió su vida, una constante entrega hasta el último aliento de vida.
Romero, no soy católico pero sí tu hermano en la fe.
Que tu vida y muerte nos recuerde que ser cristiano se traduce en entrega. Sí, entrega de las ideas, el servicio, el amor y hasta la vida por otros. Porque solo aquel que se atreve a entregar la vida por causa del Reino, en verdad la hallará.
Quizás por eso dijo con tal convicción:
‘Si me matan, resucitaré en el pueblo salvadoreño.’
Y efectivamente Oscar Romero resucitó…para legarnos un ejemplo de justicia, coraje y compasión, valores perennes que deberíamos encarnar todos aquellos que creemos que el Evangelio es luz y esperanza para los que hoy sufren por muchas causas.
Posted in por invitación, tagged por invitación on March 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Es el encuentro de un maestro principal contra el gran Maestro. El escenario está listo y el hombre abre el debate:
“Rabí sabemos que has venido de Dios como maestro; porque nadie puede hacer estas señales que tú haces, si no está Dios con él” (Juan 3:2).
Buen discurso inaugural sin duda alguna, cargado con fuertes argumentos teológicos, esperado por parte de un gran erudito y conocedor de la ley. (more…)
Posted in textures, the great sadness, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on March 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
It would have been difficult to sketch out the trajectory established by the ‘servant songs’ of the book of Isaiah and arrive before the fact at anything like the profile of Jesus. Retrospect and reflection are a different matter.
The New Testament writers found it natural to view Jesus within the frame established by the enigmatic figure of Isaiah’s ‘servant of the Lord’. These writers connected the dots, as it were, and found in the ancient prophetic text an intimation of a deeply effective agent of the Lord who would know painful rejection, sorrow, and shame. This looked, to them, just like Jesus.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
A defensible interpretative strategy allows the New Testament’s citations and allusions to draw our exegetical attention not only to the ancient words that are actually cited but to the larger contexts and passages to which those indicators point. In following this readerly strategy, one might permit the sparing but substantive allusions to the famous portrayal of the servant in Isaiah 53 to bring to mind that chapter’s entire Gestalt of the servant. Though the New Testament does not actually refer to Jesus by the poignantly beautiful descriptor ‘acquainted with grief’, these memorable words are thus treated as a component part of the servant’s—now viewed as Jesus’—profile. (more…)
Posted in textures, the great sadness, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on March 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The seat of mockers is a dangerous resting place. Contempt is among the most corrosive and self-destructive of human postures, particularly because of the power with which it seals off its subject from course correction or guidance from outside her bubble.
Contempt de-credentials all comers before they have had opportunity to make their appearance, let alone their case. Because the quality is potently anti-social, those whose circumstances or choices permit them to evade the company of the contemptuous are called blessed.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. (Psalm 1:1 ESV)
If contempt is most damaging to its subject, it is at the same time a painful whip upon those who are closest to her and who absorb its venomous lash. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on March 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
A man’s amusements speak loudly of his soul. The activities to which a woman gravitates in her leisure—when she is most free to choose her options—indicates what she would do most of the time if she were able.
We are, in a manner of speaking, most similar to the thing that makes us smile.
As mischief is sport for the dullard,
So is wisdom for the man of understanding.
The proverb’s potency lies in its ability to place wisdom in the context of sport, of fun, of diversion. We are asked to imagine the good man or woman who is capable of breaking into a spontaneous and broad grin before some spectacle of prudent speech or discerning action.
There is nothing wrong with the grin, only its employment upon prurient, tawdry, or worthless objects.
Wisdom, we learn, is not unlike a well-turned double-play, a birdie on the 18th hole, a hat trick, a photo finish.
The good person breaks into cheers, applauds, jumps up and down, or settles back in quiet admiration of this thing of beauty.
Canter Bridge 