Consuming Christianity by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”- Psalm 19:14 NIV

“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. 25 You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, ‘Through your descendants^[a] all the families on earth will be blessed.’ Acts 3:24-25 NLT

Slice of Infinity Snippets:
There is a covered bridge in Georgia that extends over a scenic rushing stream. A well-worn trail leads its visitors to a succession of small cascading waterfalls over a series of massive rocks. Sitting atop one of these rocks recently, my husband turned to me and asked, "Do you ever think of the springs in France when you see a bottle of Evian for sale?"

My answer caught me more off guard than his question. I really hadn't ever thought of the springs, or the production, or for that matter, the importing that goes into the 20 kinds of bottled water we see on our grocery store shelves. In fact, I don't usually think about the origins of anything I consume...

Sociologists call this growing trend of perspective commodification, the progression of thought whereby the commodities we consume are seen in abstraction from their origins...

Author and cultural observer Vincent Miller writes of how such a manner of seeing and interpreting is making us more comfortable with engaging religion as commodity, lifting certain portions of a religious tradition from its context and historical background...

In Christ we live as recipients and guardians of a way of life in which belief and practice are intertwined with history, meaning, and hope. There is an origin to the grace we cling to; we are made whole because in Christ we are given a context, a story, a Source.

Comments:
When reading today's writing from Jill, I immediately thought of our detachment from Origin in the teaching of Cosmic Evolution. If we are not aware of the truth of our origin, how can we expect to be who God created us to be? Then, I thought of our culture of consumerism. Americans used to be producers and now we are mainly consumers. Consumerism leads to convenience and convenience to waste. We must be stewards and a return to ancient practices of stewardship should be in our sights. Finally, I thought of our need for a culture of LIFE. Without grounds for origin(God made me with a purpose) and with a convenience (serve me) mindset, we will make decisions based on what we 'feel' is best for us at the time. We need God's word to permeate our very beings on a daily basis; to be sustained by our God. As my friend Rich said in his devotional time this morning, "God still communicates the Truth to us through our hearts. (We) need to meditate on the Word of God and allow Him to lead (us). Lord, please take hold of our hearts and lead us to the Truth. Amen."

Screaming Out Loud by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Why do you now cry aloud—
have you no king?
Has your counselor perished,
that pain seizes you like that of a woman in labor? Micah 4:9

Slice of Infinity Snippets:
In his book The Doctor and the Soul, holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl writes, "If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity, and environment, we feed the nihilism to which man is, in any case, prone."(1) Believing God is dead and humanity is the measure, the shrieking figure carries his philosophy to its logical response.

When the starting point is one without God, a philosophy of meaninglessness is an unavoidable outcome. Antitheists readily admit this, seeing meaninglessness as a logical consequence to life in a chance-driven world. And yet, they dismissively champion it as liberating or, at best, irrelevant. In an interview with Life magazine, paleontologist Stephen Gould stated plainly, "We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures... We may yearn for a 'higher' answer--but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating."(2)

But is this really possible? I fail to see how meaninglessness can ever be liberating or a pointless existence irrelevant. Without screams of despair, I fail to see how we are to understand our lives.

Yet more so, how are we to understand our own cries?

Perhaps it is an incalculable error to determine our cries are not real and telling, the hunger for meaning not a signal of meaning's very existence. Screams of futility do not make sense if there never existed One to hear them. If life were at base merely chance and matter, there would be no need for purpose. Behind the cry of a life that searches for meaning, there is a mind that seeks the unsearchable and a heart in which eternity has been set. We cry aloud because there is a King.

Comments:
What does your world present you as? Reflexes? Material? Or maybe nothing more than chicken noodle soup that was struck by lightning? Don't listen. Don't trust in man's 'knowledge'. The issue is not the degree of difference between you and a monkey, but the difference is in kind. Trust in God who made you and formed you. Trust the one who knows who He created you to be.

What is Truth? by L.T. Jeyachandran

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies. Psalm 36:5

Scripture brings to light a quality of truth that is all too often lost in abstract discussions or in popular gnostic descriptions. Truth at the conceptual and content level must not be separated from truth at the practical level; the objective and verifiable must always be set alongside the existential and experiential. In other words, the answers we seek to questions of truth must satisfy our hearts even as they stimulate our minds.

The truth of God's being and character is far more than a set of creedal principles. This truth can transform our lives in terms of a loving and free relationship. From this God and his Word, we can receive true answers to the questions that are inherently raised within us. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? The answers God provides us are simple enough for a little child to understand and yet so profound that the deepest quest of the most sophisticated philosopher can be satisfied.

Comments: Yesterday, Uncle Jay commented on the actions of his son, Matt, and how as a boy visiting the streets of Chicago, Matt "would always go up and down the street giving his money to the homeless without any encouragement whatsoever he just saw they needed what he could give them, blessed are our youth and my we the adults never stop learning from them."

Here is a great example of what Truth really is - beyond concept or theory - Matt, even as a child, bore the image of his creator. Sacrifice of himself for others without regard to social status and without coaching. I know Matt, and although he likes to fight, he is also one of the softest persons in our family. Praise be to God for showing us our true character.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3