Weeks 29-30: Plot Summaries

The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence

   Last week we had a "Brother Lawrence" retreat at Richmond Hill, so I figured I better read up! Twenty or so friends stayed over for a few days - cleaning, praying, and cleaning some more..."having resolved to make the love of God the end of all [their] actions..."

The Earth is the Lord's; The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe - Abraham Joshua Heschel

   Wow, not what I expected! I supposed it to be a history book, and it does include lots of great cultural history. It is a testament of devotion, a witness to the love of God, through thick and thin. This would be a great book to read aloud in a prayer group.

Christ is the Question - Wayne Meeks

   Meeks starts by placing historical Jesus research in the context of general western intellectual history (subject-object dilemmas, scientific method, historical science-envy). Kinda cool. After that he dives into his main arguement: Jesus' life and identity are social phenomena, just like everyone else's - in time and relationship and language. The historical Jesus narrative that goes something like -- Jesus' original message-identity was x, the apostles understood it as x+1, then all kinds of variations developed x+/-/*/etc, then the church honed in on a particular x+something -- this narrative helps but misses the interpersonal nature of identity. "Who is Jesus" is a constant dialogue or discussion, during Jesus' life and beyond.

How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening - ed E.O. Parrott

   A funny book of plot summaries, mostly in verse. They are funniest when you've actually read the book before, so the book doesn't quite live up to its titular purpose! Oh well.

notes

The Practice of the Presence of God
-That there needed fidelity in those drynessess or insensibilities and irksomnesses in prayer by which God tries our love to Him...
-having resolved to make the love of God the end of all his actions...
-referring all we do to Him
-I cannot do this unless Thou enablest me...
-That we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity
-that we may beg assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us
-that we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God
-by rising after my falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith and love
-without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily
-set Him always before us
-a simple attention, and a general fond regard for God
-holy inactivity
-Hope in Him more than ever
-A little lifting up of the heart suffices. A little remembrance of God
-small but holy exercise
-fund and center of his soul
-Let us make way for grace; let us redeem the lost time, for perhaps we have but little left
-At first one often thinks it lost time, but you must go on
-Lift up you heart to Him...the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to him
-Let us begin then
-Let us live and die with God
-Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity
-Let us begin in earnest
-a holy habit
-He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone
-offer Him your pains incessantly
-Let all our employment be to know God
-faith...one simple act

The Earth is the Lord's
-The stone is broken, but the words are alive...They still knock at our gates as if begging to be engraved "on the Tablets of every heart."
-In this language [Yiddish], you say "beauty" and mean "spirituality"; you say "kindness" and mean "holiness."
-maggidim
-all were partners in the Torah
-Rashi democratized Jewish education, he brought the Bible, the Talmud, and the Midrash to the people.
-shtibl
-Sog mir a shtickl Torah - tell me a little Torah
-knowledge was not a means for achieving power, but a way of clinging to the source of all reality
-feel heaven in a passage of Talmud
-pipul
-The soul is sustained by the regard for that which transcends all immediate purposes.
-Heaven the tangent at the circle of all experience
-one might fulfill his destiny by the way
-the world could not exist without the Torah
-The Divine sings in noble deeds. Man's effort is but the counterpoint to the music of His will.
-all pervading mystery
-I have gone through the whole of the Talmud three times...Yes, but how much of the Talmud has gone through you?
-thirty-six zaddikim
-a Torah within the heart
-somewhat of the Sabbath was infused into every day
-Jews did not build magnificent synagogues; they built bridges leading from the heart to God
-Our energies are too abundant for living indifferently

Christ is the Question
-more study, more questions
-history trying to emulate objectivity of science
-try to use model of personal identity as a social and transactional process
-"When someone says, 'The Bible clearly teaches...' we an usually be sure that an attempt is being made to co-opt the Bible's authority in order to foreclose argument on a topic on which good persons, including good Christians, reasonably disagree."
-modernist-fundamentalist battle "eclipsed" narrative depth
-poetry can make history
-the more broadly we cast our nets, the more interpretive fish we bring up
-the web of narratives; the intersection of narratives
-Jesus' identity discovered and invented
-Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection: "the generative center"
-Harmony, homonoia, as the central value of ancient Greek city life
-The motive that drove Greek and Roman society was philotimia, "ambition," literally "love of honor."
-the plain sense vs the literal sense vs the historical sense
-Thus the same Protestant tradition that gave to this country much of its zeal for education and many of its pioneering educational institutions also contributed to that pervasive anti-intellectualism that infects every part of our national life.
-The Bible as rule book, very much needs Mishnah and Talmuds and Responsa, or some hard-to-imagine Protestant equivalent.
-master narrative
-"indispensable resource" rather than "binding authority"
-Hans Frei: "Let us assume that the notion of a right interpretation of the Bible is itself not meaningless, but it is eschatological."
-surely we have not seen the last surprise in God's plan...

Weeks 26-28: Doorway

Cold Mountain: The Legend of Han Shan and Shih Te, The Original Dharma Bums - Sean Michael Wilson, illustrated by Akiko Shimojima

The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims - Mustafa Akyol

   Here comes the ice cream truck again! As small as our neighborhood is, you'd think we wouldn't get the ice cream truck three times a day. Lots of kids around, though, makes for good business I suppose.
   Jesus the rabbi, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the prophet, Jesus the bodhisattva, Jesus the logos, Jesus the avatar, Jesus the guru. Am I getting out of hand? How can Jesus be the door, gate, way into the love and appreciation of non-Christian religion and practice? Cold Mountain indirectly and Islamic Jesus directly provide examples...

notes
Cold Mountain
-The most glorious warhorse ever sat/ can't match a crippled kitty/ in a race to catch a rat.
-I just clap time for the flowers/as they dance,
-I can remember the taste of that dirt.
-In the summer it's light as winds;/ in the winter it's my quilt./ Winter or summer, of use in both/ year upon year, just this.
-The Tao's a road/ that runs straight through.
-You could try to make it/ to cold moutain
-Sunrise, and the mist would blind a/ hidden dragon
-cloud roads are in empty space

Islamic Jesus
-fearful rumors about secret decision in the West to Christianize and conquer Turkey and other Muslim countries (history of church-politics-military overlap in Christian missions)
 -"the only evidence we possess in the Gospels would suggest that his contemporaries found it impossible to make sense of him..." A.N. Wilson
-"the steep ascent...It is freeing a slave, or feeding on a day of hunger an orphaned relative, or a poor man in the dust. Then to be one of those who have faith, and urge each other to steadfastness and urge each other to compassion" Qur'an
-Qn - believers are "those who have faith and do right actions"
-Jewish Christians and potential influence on early Islam
-parallels between stories in Qur'an and apocryphal Gospels
-Tawrat - Torah, Zabur - Psalms, Injil - Gospel
-are "nasara" the Nazoreans?
-Mary - major character in Qur'an
-rock inscription in Negev, 7th c., "Amen, the Lord of Worlds, the Lord of Moses and Jesus"
-rasul - one who is sent; nabi - news giver
-prophecy of messenger to come - "Ahmad" - person Ahmad, Muhammah, or as adjective "praised"
-Jesus - son of Mary, Word, Spirit, Messiah
-parallels - Kingdom of God/ Caliphate, Halahka/ Sharia, Jesus for Jewish renewal/ Jesus for Islamic renewal