Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

Needless to say there is much that has been said around the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the matter of the legality of abortion back to the States for legislative action. Through the decision the Supreme Court communicated that the United States Constitution does not secure the right for anyone to seek an abortion and that the 1973 ruling guaranteeing that right was in error. The Supreme Court has overturned longer-standing precedents in the past, but that is not why I am writing about this decision.  In full disclosure I am of the belief that human life starts at the moment of conception. I see this position supported in my understanding of the science of reproduction and I believe that this position is in line with mainline veins of western philosophical tradition, current societal norms and sensibilities concerning motherhood and child rearing, and a careful reading of the Bible. However, I am not filled with joy concerning either one of the de...

Today, seemingly out of "nowhere" I recalled the memorial acclimation that I was often invited to recite when I was a young boy in the Catholic Church: Dying you destroyed our death, Rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.  My sin will thrust me, hard, so hard, into the ground some day. Unnatural though it will be my soul will be unzipped from this body of mine disintegrating what God joined 52 years ago. Yet this death will not result in my destruction. It will be the doorway to a new life.  With overwhelming force God will rip me from my grave.  Just as Christ died, was buried, and resurrected so will I be. My brother, master, and savior has shown the way through his death. This death that was meant for evil has been humiliated by the Son and it now kneels before him to do his bidding in benefit of the children he has won for his Father.  I need to taste this death today and die to that which seeks me. I need to come alive and unite myself to him w...

hermeneutic - adj. concerning interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts  noun a method or theory of interpretation We can't go on, together With suspicious minds And we can't build our dreams On suspicious minds - Suspicious Minds, Elvis Presley If there is one thing that has characterized the conversations of our recent times it is this: we are entrenched in a diabolical hermeneutic of suspicion. Now a hermeneutic is a theory or method of interpretation. As people speak I interpret what they are saying and fashion an appropriate response. If someone requires the potatoes at our table they request that I pass them and I fashion a response in concert with my interpretation of their communication. I pass them the bowl of potatoes. That is much more appropriate than throwing them a potato or two from the bowl. Interpretation betrays my stances, even, my heart. The act of interpretation is active and impacted by context. I know that my heart is the closest and mo...

In 1992 a music group named Blind Lemon recorded a song called No Rain. As famous as that song became, the music video became even more so. In the video a pudgy little girl with glasses saw life very differently than her audience. The video begins with her, alone, on a stage where she was dressed in a cute little bee outfit. In that outfit she performed a tap dance routine that was much better than anything I could muster from these clumsy feet of mine. Well, when she was done, there was a single man laughing and what followed was nothing less than a chorus of laughter that rattled her. It impacted her so much that, saddened, she ran from the stage. The next time we see her she is peering around a door (presumably the door to the theater) and into the bright light of the sun. Reflecting on the happenings in the first part of the video I cannot help but think of her reaction to the laughing as a rejection of the counterfeit community for which she performed. Simply, she rejected its rej...

I am the biggest problem in my children's lives. I am the biggest problem in my marriage. I am the biggest problem in my church. I am the biggest problem in my workplace. I am the biggest problem in my neighborhood. Thanks be to God that the Bible is full of God's working through the biggest problems people bring into any situation and grinding out his good and perfect will through it all. Abraham had issues. Moses had issues. Samuel had issues. David had issues. Elijah had issues. The Apostles had issues. Paul had issues. Yet in spite of all of their issues, and mine, God redeemed their work and continues to draw people to himself through redeeming ours. Prayerfully through redeeming mine. His power is, indeed, perfected in my weakness for no one could see the good things that have come my way and honestly say that their genesis is in me.  No one in my head and heart anyway.

And the  Lord  God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”  Genesis 3:22 The Bible gives no indication about how long it took for Adam and Eve to be deceived and partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, defying God in the process, and earning exclusion from the tree of life. If it was 10 years or 1,000 years since they were created and related to God unfettered by sin the results were legion. Yet it seems to me that it can be distilled into a single, awful condition.  Humanity is now in pursuit of truths. Before we fell, as we related to God, we pursued him. Singularly. All of our actions and activities endeavored toward a single point and goal. It was a pursuit of the truth. Or, to put it another way, The Truth. Our knowledge of good and evil rested in what the architect of everything seen and ...

This  post  is about my definition of a theological statement and a further statement that individuals, not groups, are the only ones who we can apply theological statements to with any accuracy. This post is more of the same, but goes a bit deeper on why individuals are the only ones who can be accurately described by a theological statement. It does not matter what I call myself or which group I belong to as the truth does not lie in creed, doctrine, or manifesto. It lies in the heart. This is not some sort of Disney theology for that does not frustrate people. But this frustrates me. Why am I frustrated? Because I want to both attain and hold onto personal peace and prosperity. In the unknown I am unsettled. In the dark is where I find my poverty. How am I to know where to dig to lay my sure foundation unless I know what lies beneath my feet? When and unto whom should I draw my curtains? I need to know. So I force myself into knowledge. And, in so doing, I take the place of...