Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I am just now getting over the flu that I have had for the better part of a week. I am actually now able to concentrate and get some substantial professional and personal work done.   I hate being sick. So much of it is so frustrating because there is so much I want to do, so much of what I want to be, and I am not able to do and be that when I am ill. I know I need to embrace it when it comes. At the very least it illustrates to me life in this fallen world and brings into sharper focus the spousal purpose of my body. You see, I long to give of myself to my wife. That self gift, that love gift, is made manifest through my body. My invisible desires are now visible. There is a myriad of ways that this self gift is expressed to her - from folding laundry to holding her hand when she is sad. And yet I acutely feel my limitations of my expression of the love gift my body is purposed to be when I am sick. It is not merely a feeling of uselessness, but a frustration of the purpose ...

I am continuing my journey through Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and I had never realized how body-focused the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis truly are.  But then it all makes so much more sense when it was brought to my attention that the body we have been given in a manifestation of me, or to put it another way, the "I". And it goes beyond that still. Not only does it reveal me, but my body also reveals, in no small measure, the image of God. That is not to say that God is made of flesh like me as is depicted in so many Renaissance paintings. The old man in the sky is nothing like the God as revealed in the Bible. However, the love that God is, the holiness that he is, the justice he is, the righteousness that he is...all of it is shown to the world through my body. In a very real way, my body allows for others, and for me, to participate in the mystery (the hiddenness) of the image of God. That is by design; from the beginning.  If God is revealed in nature...

I am reading A Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II. It is a thick book that may take me the better part of a year to get through. Last night, I came across a passage in the book that stopped me. In this part of the book the Pope is ruminating on the initial solitude of man and the implications that has on the body. As he does he makes this statement: "The...text never speaks directly about the body; even when it says 'the Lord God formed man with dust of the ground,' it speaks about man and not the body."   Now I was never explicitly taught that the body, and the body alone, came from the ground. However, I was somehow under the mistaken impression that the body was formed and waited around for the soul. Maybe I thought that when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"  was the point at which he was given a soul, but that is not the best reading of the text.  Now, Augustine helps me out a little bit here w...

  His Word shall live forever. The Word is a sword that pierces the heart And its truth is a light that cuts through the dark Of this world. Nations shall rise and nations shall fall But nothing shall stand in the way Of the Word.  - Iona I was young and now I am much older and there is one thing that I am more convinced of than ever. God's Word, the Bible, is the only truth that cuts through all of the darkness that this world offers me. Time-bound kingdoms, the ones that ruled over large swaths of this planet and even the one that currently commands the sons and daughters of disobedience cannot stand in its way.  The Word is sufficient in the ultimate and proximate sense as there is nothing of which it does not speak nor conquer. It's light, almost blinding at times, cannot be dimmed. Revelation after revelation, promise after promise, peace upon peace - it's all there and as it marches on it smashes the wisdom of the wise confounding the schemes of the clever.  Wh...

  We had some good machines, but they don't work no more. I loved you once, don't love you anymore.  - Faded Flowers, Shriekback Where are the good machines? The iron and gears that ground out the steps of this life and even love? So many hours to maintain them just to bask in their hum. So many sunset questions concerning their fitness for another day. Another month. One more year? Why was the hole they filled never filled? My love was strong for them. No one who really knew me would think otherwise. What? I never spoke of them to you? You never heard? Surely you felt them. Don't you know how they dictated my treatment of you? You thought that was just me? Well, yes. It was. Yes, you beautiful automatons. I loved you. You never cared on whit for me but I couldn't stop drinking your oil and polishing your brass. I saw my reflection once. Once in the mirror chrome. And that was your death. And mine. You'll fade even more. You will never again see my face.  Only my ba...

I can tell you My love for you will still be strong After the boys of Summer have gone - Don Henley, Boys of Summer Ah the boys of Summer. From where they come we scarcely know. But they arrive nonetheless with their blonde hair, blue eyes, and muscle beach physique. Their white teeth glint even in the rain and their voice rivals that of the storms that herald cooler, drier air. Their hands are firm, fierce, and tender. They know their business, whether a traveling carnival or beach to comb, and their seduction pull shakes even the most sure and forthright. What chance do they not offer? What delight do they not possess? What siren song have they not mastered? What freedom do they not promise? What spell do they not cast? Is there peril at which they do not scoff? Is there sweet fragrance that escapes them? What opportunity is there apart from them even in their wake? Their season is brief and then just you. Me. He. My Love proves strong during their wax and wane doesn't He? Doesn...