Rumi, Movement, and Leaving my car a mystery

This morning I was listening to Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippetts. This particular show was on the Sufi poet and teacher, Rumi.  The guest quoted Rumi as having said something beautiful connected to the dance of the Dervishes, and it connects to several other thoughts I’ve been having lately. 
If you don’t plow the Earth [...]

The Impossible Now–Part Four

This is the final installment of an introductory position paper I’m calling “The Impossible Now” or “Towards a Theology of the Impossible.”  There are three previous parts.  You can find them here, here, and here.  In this final installment I talk about “the religious question.”  Cheers!
…The im/possible is refusing, as it always does, to be [...]

God is Dead

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to [...]

The Impossible Now–Part Three

…we build Emergency Rooms…

Of course this doesn’t stop the im/possible from occurring again. Wildcard futures, the unexpected and unpredicted, keep on happening; but just not in the same way. If we can count on them, they are no longer miraculous; they would have crystallized into just another part of the natural world. The im/possible, [...]

The Impossible Now–Part Two

…There’s another kind of future, one we’re even less equipped to face….
Truthfully, the kind of event I’m envisioning can’t be prepared for. We cannot even begin to imagine or plan ahead for this kind of future—the wildcard future. It’s always out of nowhere. Nobody sees it coming. As post-structuralist philosopher Jaques Derrida said, it [...]

Expectancy

Each man was judged according to his expectancy.  One expected the possible; another the eternal; but the greatest of all expected the impossible… Johannes Silencio

Flame and (im)possibility

This morning I’ve lit a candle in my office, symbolizing “the Prayer” and the “Divine Presence”.  I keep looking at it, watching it flicker back and forth and dance to and from itself.  It occurs to me that the flame is never stationary–it never stays still, it’s never in the same place it just was.  [...]

A Guest Appearence…

Recently my wife Jessie read a book that I was sent for review. Her thoughts on it were great and so she’s making a guest appearance here at sensualjesus.

Eve is a novel–but don’t let that throw you for a loop.  Like Richard Rohr says, “It’s all true, and some of it really happened.”  The [...]

Art.

Sorry for the proliferation of quotes…but I think each of them is inspiring and gives great insight.
“Why indeed must ‘God’ be a noun? Why not a verb…the most active and dynamic of all? …It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God…” –Mary Daly (theologian)
“We must accept that this creative [...]

Which One Do You Feed?

From the sermon and the National Prayer service this morning:
There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom:  One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.
“There are two wolves struggling inside each of us.” the old man said.  “One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear… The [...]