I just had to pass this on. This is hilarious! Much of the Bible rendered in Legos…
POETRY: Thank You, Krishna
Here are the lyrics for a song I wrote many years ago, yet it hasn’t lost its appeal. I used it last Sunday in an inter-generational service I did on Gratitude…
Thank you, O my sweet Lord,
for life in my hands.
Thank you for everything
I now understand.
Thank you for family;
thank you for friends.
Thank you for everything
that comes to an end.
Thank you, O my sweet Lord,
for children to teach.
Thank you, O my dear Lord,
for people to reach.
Thank you for resistance,
rebellion and strife.
Thank you for anything
that enhances life.
(Refrain:)
Thank you, Krishna, (3x)
for everything.
Thank you for birth and death,
disease and old age,
and reminding me that
the world’s all a stage.
Thank you for truth, my Lord,
that I’m one with you,
yet also different,
so I can serve too.
Thank you for challenges
that shake up my soul.
Thank you for inner growth,
presenting this goal:
to see everything
as coming from you.
Thank you for your holy name
and loving pastimes,
and thank you for everything
that fits into rhyme.
And I appreciate
your being with me
at every moment now,
just letting me be.
Me
I am a second year seminary student and long-time student of life. I lived with the Hare Krishnas for six years, and am now on the path to Unitarian Universalist ministry. I gain strength from Native American traditional practices and Dances of Universal Peace.
Stats for September
I know I was pretty quiet in September, (and I see I wasn’t the only one,) but the number of unique visitors to Facilitating Paradox for the month rose to 779, a modest increase over August. Once again, visitors came from all over the world. These were the top search key phrases that brought visitors here:
paradox quotes
paradox
hindu wisdom
paradox poetry
This blog is currently rated a Slimy Mollusc in The Truth Laid Bear’s Blogosphere Ecosystem, which ranks by number of other blogs that link to it. I can’t remember ever being a Slimy Mollusc before. I think I’ve always been beneath that.
In the coming weeks and months I should have a few papers to publish. In the next day or two I’ll have something to say about Gnosticism. Come back again.
Thought for the day
This is a bit of an elaboration on a previous thought of the day, but have you ever noticed that the human ear is roughly the shape of a question mark?
Let s/he who has ears to hear…
Listen.
Smile for Two
Check this out. I found it on a Greek site. (At least the text looked Greek to me–you know how the saying goes…)
There were several other adaptations on the typical smiley face there as well.
UPDATE: The link I had posted to the original image has gone awry. If you search Google Images for “Smile” you can still find it buried under many other happy faces.
A Good Book
I’ve dived into Richard E. Rubenstein’s When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome, and have really been enjoying it. It’s written by a Jewish professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs, so it paints a very broad picture of the history of the Arian controversy. The biggest thing I’ve learned from this book about the Council of Nicea and surrounding personalities and events is that it’s a lot more complicated than you may have heard. You may have known, like I had, that the Council of Nicea (325) was when the Church declared Arianism, (the belief that Jesus was not fully divine,) heretical and wrote the Nicean Creed; well, yes, but… It’s a fascinating, intriguing, entertaining story. (We get to reenact it next weekend, and I’ve got the part of Arius!)
Caught by SPAM
Well I hadn’t figured that blogs would be succeptible to spam, but I just had to block the first IP address from this site. The culprit left a rather disturbing comment to one of my earlier postings about this blog itself, (which I’ve also deleted.) Bloggers beware: it could happen to you.
Wasn’t there a Monty Python’s Flying Circus skit about some character persistently and repeatedly saying “spam”? Yes, indeedlededoo.
Continue reading “Caught by SPAM”Good God!
A funny thing happened in Intro to Christian Education Ministry class today. (I have been getting a lot out of that class.) I was taking notes, and wrote down the word “God”. Immediately I thought of those who prefer not to use that word and are more comfortable with “Good”. And they suddenly blurred in my distracted mind into something entirely different, the best of both worlds.
Now in presenting this concept I’d like you to imagine Wayne’s Word from Between the Lions. On one side of the court is Sir Good on his noble steed. On the other side is Sir God on his gallant horse. They gallop fiercely at each other, both shouting their names. They crash, and as the dust settles a new sign is formed from between them:
G∞d
Notice that it’s not one or even two O’s in between that G and that D. It’s the symbol for infinity, indicating that it is infinitely better than either symbols that came before it. It starts with G, the 7th letter of the alphabet; 7 is the perfect number in ancient Judaism. It ends with D, which is also at the end of the word “end”; meaning that it is the end of all things as well as the beginning: the alpha and omega. It has three characters, which could represent trinitarian concepts to some, or three modes of material nature to others. It combines elements of alphabetic text and hieroglyphic symbolism that is reminiscent of the concept of Latin-American mestizo. I could probably go on…
What do you think?
Continue reading “Good God!”Happy Equinox!
May you have a balanced beginning of Autumn, wherever you are!