RealityRevision

Blessings

I have trouble with the word blessings.
Always have.
Not even sure what the word really means, really.

I know when I feel happy, I feel blessed?
Like the time the earth stopped, and I had an idea, an idea I could feel.
Or the time I could speak, without regard for words.
I know when I feel like shit, I feel cursed?
Like those times I could only, only feel regret.
The times I felt guilty for not feeling blessed.

I think I do know this,
Blessings is a good word.
I word that should be free,
felt without obligation.

Bell and Hell

So the internets are blazing with the controversy, being a promo video for Rob Bell's new book. Check it out if you haven't already.

This video resonates very deeply for me, since the "fear of judgement" is what got into Christianity in the first place. Incidentally my extreme distaste for the bad theology, that created the this, is one of the main reasons I have disassociated myself with Christianity. I definitely look forward to ready Bell's new book. It's late and I'm falling asleep...

Thoughts listening to SOF

I was recently listening to Speaking of Faith and Krista Tippett was talking to Ellen Davis, a Biblical scholar. This was an excellent cast, something that stuck with me (beside the need to read Wendell Berry) was this scripture.

Genesis 1:

21. God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
22. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

26. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Now Ellen Davis pointed out something that I had never noticed before. In verse 22 God gives the animals a blessing and a command, "be fruitful". It was the exact same blessing and "be fruitful" command that we received in verse 28. She suggested that this overlooked detail, should influence the way we read and understand the later part of verse 28, "rule over the..."

I'm not saying obviously that animals are our equals. The essence of this that intrigued me was that the animals were given a almost the same blessing we were before we were even created. Seeing this detail gives me a renewed respect, responsibility and appreciation for this creation that I'm a part of.

Book Review: Serve God, Save the Planet

Real short book review:

I liked this book, although there was not really any "ah ha" moments, I found myself nodding emphatically the entire way through. I suppose if I was more conservative, I would have found the biblical support for "creation care" a bit more startling. Sorry I digress. What I value most is this book's practicality. The author and his family practices the life style that he writes about. He seems to often to write out of personal experience and always has many practical ideas of what "action" looks like.