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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/3/2009 1:37 PM (GMT -6) |   | Tom:
You hinted at this “death” aspect above too, and I think it’s part of what I think is a tendency in your theology to avoid saying anything good about human beings. That’ll probably come across wrong, but I’m just trying to locate what it is I’m uncomfortable about in your ‘painting’. It’s not propositional anymore. It’s aesthetic. We’re in an art gallery, not a library, right now.
My point is just that our ‘yes’ can’t be only a ‘yes’ about ourselves considered separate from God (i.e., about our nothingness). That’s there (has to be), yeah. But that’s not the WHOLE truth about us. If ALL we came to believe in conviction was that we’re lost and corrupt and nothing and scum—that wouldn’t be enough to win us ‘TO’ anything. You have to take God out of the picture to say that’s what a human being is, and in a sense that’s what sin’s privation is (viz., what you’re left with when God is removed from the picture). But saying ‘yes’ to God has to be a response to God’s ‘yes’ to us as well, to the value that God’s grace creates in us, and that mean perceiving and saying yes to something positive, to life, not just agreeing that we’re scum. We turn ‘from’ nothing ‘to’ everything. There’s a ‘no’ side to our ‘yes’ to God (a ‘no’ to nothingness, which is itself an acknowledgment of our predicament, yes; I grant your point. I just don’t want to dignify nothingness with a ‘yes’—remember, all the promises of God in Christ are “yes” [2Cor 1.20]. It’s ‘yes’ to God and ‘no’ to no-thingness).
It's probably my current state of mind. I'm all over the Jesus Prayer right now, invoking Jesus' Presence, keeping myself aware of my utter, desperate, continual need for him...and provoking a sense of continual desire for repentence of my sin and self-emptying of my "self". I'm throwing myself as much onto God's Grace as is possible for me. I will continue to make myself nothing so that Jesus can be everything in me. It's not so much that I disdain humanity such that I can't say anything good about it (Given the Incarnation, why would I do that?), as much as I wish to be pure-hearted towards God. I ain't trying to think about how cool I am (the "window" to the Creator)...just how cool God is Himself (the Creator).
Hesychasm. Thank the Lord for it!
Orthodox Christian Monasticism - Hesychasm
Hesychia as a Method of Healing
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/3/2009 3:01:03 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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