far and away...

i know its a long ways down the road but i hope my kid looks like this at some point.....

the meeting of the minds

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this meeting is my personal g2.

a transcontinental philosophical pipeline

today, i finished a book. while this might not be an amazing accomplishment for the majority of society, its quite the feat for me. i have the extremely poor habit of starting books, getting either a quarter or halfway through and dropping it. for whatever reason, i have an extremely difficult time being captured by a book and following through with it. that isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading; i love it. It's just that maybe my attention span is too short to focus.

sidenote: i also greatly enjoy theology/philosophy books. a lot of the undergrad work i did at fresno pacific was exploring philosophy of history, theological traditions, historical eras where new ideas and thought processes were being formed about the world. i really like how thinkers can have a prevailing influence on the social consciousness.

with that said, i just finished a book by pete rollins called how (not) to speak of god: marks of the emerging church. pete runs a community in belfast, northern ireland called ikon and is a distinct voice in theology circles at the minute. he studied at queen's university, belfast and has a BA in Scholastic Philosophy, an MA in Political Theory and Social Criticism and a PhD dealing with Post-Structural theory. needles to say (yes, needles), the guy has some pretty forward-thinking ideas about the nature and structure of the church. his community is described as 'iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging and failing', surely an interesting way to describe a 'church' in a religious landscape still clinging to post-enlightenment, rationalistic tendencies in defending itself against the heathens of science, homosexuality, atheism and secularism.

in all honesty, reading the book was an extremely deep and refreshing activity; i came away multiple times thinking about things that had never crossed my mind. the first half of the book is devoted to exploring some of the philosophical and theological undercurrents of the 'emerging' church, which essentially seeks to embrace both sides of the binary world we live in (atheistic/theistic, unorthodox/orthodox, revelation/concealment, etc.), in order to help us think thoughtfully about how we connect with God in a way that does not impinge on others. the other half is a collection of descriptions of some of the services ikon runs. throughout the book, there is an underlying humility and grace in how rollins articulates some of the more heady, difficult concepts within ikon's theology. i found the holistic nature of the book compelling and i think the book could and should speak to some of the quandaries the mainstream church finds itself in. so heres to ikon! cheers.

my new love

i think i'm in love.

no words part 2

wow. 'and he passes it to the man....and boom goes the dynamite.'

hello new week

hello. its a brilliant morning. sunshines here to stay. coffee in the morning and checking up on the days news is becoming commonplace. really good. no, real real good. couple of things thinking about this morning:

1. finishing my response to this

2. head down to urban to follow up on my application

3. real excited about timee giving me this. i'll have some thoughts posted later on where rollins is headed.

4. maybe a bike ride and some basketball? or a coffee shop run? the possibilities are endless.


what are you doing with your day?

j.x