Transformative Knowledge

 

The opening of the poem The Agony by George Herbert speaks of the modern way of knowing: the rational scientific mode (“philosophers” = natural philosophers). Herbert says there is so much more to take into account; there is so much more to knowing. He seeks to balance, heal and re-inform our ways of knowing. To radically transform our ways of knowing, Herbert invites us to turn to Christ at the intersection of sin and love – Christ’s Passion.

Closer to home, have you noticed that churches have ways of presenting sin and love? There are churches that speak about sin and damnation. They are ready to point out sin and make love conditional. And, there are churches that speak of unconditional love and inclusion while making sin conditional. Herbert reminds us that transcendent love can only be fully understood when we come to a knowledge of our sin and the meaning of cross.

 

The Agony

Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through ev’ry vein.

Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

Breaking News

Breaking News

By Jennifer Ann Johnson

 

Against a backdrop—indigo and star,

Luminous angels appear before men,

Ancient Wisdom they proclaim near and far,

To shepherds and sheep, to earth and heaven.

 

Luminous angels appear before men,

On a Space-Time night with Tripartite accord,

To shepherds and sheep, to earth and heaven,

“A new and living way” with rights ignored.

 

On a Space-Time night with Tripartite accord,

Emmanuel lay swaddled, veiled in flesh,

“A new and living way” with rights ignored,

In the love of the Father, mankind refreshed.

 

Emmanuel lay swaddled, veiled in flesh,

The babe’s short gasp rouses the dry bones of men,

In the love of the Father, mankind refreshed,

“I, the Lord, will breathe my life into them.”

 

The babe’s short gasp rouses the dry bones of men,

Ancient Wisdom He proclaims near and far,

“I, the Lord, will breathe my life into them,

Like your backdrop—indigo and star.”

 

 

© Jennifer A. Johnson, 2017, All Rights Reserved

At 64

 

At 64,

The pages no longer turn at will,

The knees no longer salute,

The mind carries on

As if yesterday mattered,

As if tomorrow began anew.

 

At 64,

Worries takeover

As tomorrow encroaches;

Surmise sets

On what tomorrow will be.

 

At 64,

The sunrise still finds its setting,

After today sings its songs;

Tomorrow’s edge of existence

Creeps in to cut another day into cliché.

 

 

 

© Jennifer A. Johnson, 2017, All Rights Reserved

De profundis

 

De profundis

 

So, she leapt through each night, to each waking dream saying,

“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for the multitude of my sins”

“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for the multitude of my sins”

 “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for the multitude of my sins”

In the morning, she headed out the door saying,

“I commit this day to you, O Lord, and the works of my hands”

“I commit this day to you, O Lord, and the works of my hands”

“I commit this day to you, O Lord, and the works of my hands”

She fell asleep saying,

“Thank you, O Lord, for your lovingkindness and tender mercies”

“Thank you, O Lord, for your lovingkindness and tender mercies”

 “Thank you, O Lord, for your lovingkindness and tender mercies”

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

©Ann Johnson Kingdom Venturers

~~~~

Psalms 130. De profundis. OUT of the deep have I called unto thee, O LORD;  Lord, hear my voice. O let thine ears consider well  the voice of my complaint. If thou, LORD, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss,  O Lord, who may abide it?  For there is mercy with thee;  therefore shalt thou be feared.  I look for the LORD; my soul doth wait for him;  in his word is my trust.  My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch;  I say, before the morning watch.  O Israel, trust in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy,  and with him is plenteous redemption.  And he shall redeem Israel  from all his sins.

Elysium Laundromats

Elysium Laundromats  Laundromat

 

When you live alone

It all comes together

At the Laundromat.

 

Money-grubbing washers,

Flippant dryers,

Crossword puzzlers and

The carnival ride centrifuges waiting for my quarters.

 

The envoy of filth makes a “final” appearance,

Only to be immersed in the clean waters of

Anabaptism.

 

O, fountain of youth,

You left me alone and

Benched,

Among the churning kilns.

 

© Cindy Wity, 2015, All Rights Reserved

Vanishing Point

Vanishing Point

(Homage to the brothers and sisters in Christ at Emmanuel AME Church, Charleston, SC, 2015)

Lines converged

At the front of Emanuel AME church.

UnWise Blood, brooding in the back, ran cold.

 ~~

Lines converged

As Emanuel AME-“God with us”-black brother and sisters.

Wise Blood sought the unconditional, indiscriminate embrace of the Other.

~~

Lines converged

While prayers ascended

UnWise Blood descended…into hell.

~~

Lines converged

A fine point emerged (but not from prayer),

A trajectory of bile aimed at neighbors on their knees.

~~

Lines converged and Wise Blood flowed out

Wooden cross braces could no longer bear its sacred weight.

New Life arose away from earth’s downward pull.

~~

Lines Converged

As showers of prayers began descending:

“I forgive you.” “I pray that you repent.” “May God have mercy on your soul.”

~~

Lines Converged

When I was told “White Privilege is your name.”

“You are excluded, neighbor”.

~~

Lines Converged

When credence for exclusion beget civil war anarchy,

When credence for exclusion became Dogma from a bully pulpit.

~~

Lines Converged

When Evil handed UnWise Blood the means to destroy the spiritual growth of the Other.

At twenty-one.

~~

 Lines converged

Dylann Roof emerged.

Civil War meet God.

 

 

 

© Sally Paradise, 2015, All Rights Reserved

~~~~~~

Charleston Victims Forgive the Shooter

Je Suis la Vérité

 

What is truth?

The satirical stylus?

The severing sword?

The signet of supremacy?

 

What is truth?

A cartoon, a caliphate, a Caesar?

 

“What is truth?”

Pilate asked.

A “thing of this world”

French philosopher Foucalt answered.

A “regime” of beliefs and values linked to systems of political and economic power,

A scientific, non-universal apparatus feeding into majority opinions.

 

“So you are a king, are you?”

Pilate, the truth of power, asked.

Jesus, the power of truth, answered,

“You are the one who’s calling me a king. I was born for this;

I’ve come into the world for this: to give evidence about the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

 

“Truth!” What’s that?”

Pilate asked, but

With those words, he went back to the Foucaltians.

 

Truth is witness. Jesus said,

“We testify to what we have seen and heard from God”

 

Put down your stylus Cartoonist,

Put down your sword, Peter,

Put down your signet Freedom of Speech

And follow me.

 

For,

Je suis le Chemin, la Vérité et la Vie.

 

~~~~~~~

Sacrificial Love

 

“Without entrusting oneself to the God who judges justly, it will hardly be possible to follow the crucified Messiah and refuse to retaliate when abused. The certainty of God’s just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. The divine system of judgment is not the flip side of the human reign of terror, but a necessary correlate of human nonviolence.”

 

Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

~~~~~

Poem © SallyParadise.com, 2015, All Rights Reserved; Scripture quoted:  The Kingdom New Testament quotes by N. T. Wright as translated from koine greek.

Five Years of Faithfulness

Wordpress anniversary-5Yrs

You Registered on WordPress 5 years ago!

Sally, you registered on WordPress.com 5 years ago!

So, Sally Paradise you are five years old!

 Born in the Year of the Dragon (the author, that is), Sally has fire in her belly.

 A lot has happened during the past five years: A lady friend from church went to be with the Lord last month. Over a thousand people came to her Memorial Service last weekend to remember her and to rejoice in her work in the Lord.

 And, it was almost a year ago, almost Father’s Day that my dad went to be with the Lord. He was 85. There were others lost, both physically and spiritually.

 Beyond the losses there have been multiple gains and blessings from God.  One of which has been there has no no change in my job status ~ I am still working, though many around me have been out of work since Obama (the Greatest Income Unequalizer of all time) took his second oath of office. 

My first post, Jun 4, 2009 @ 17:59, a short story:

Almost Like Praying

Since this is a party of sorts I thought I should drudge up some Sally snapshots ~  some forgotten posts ~ which over the five years have gained the most attention and have also been some of my favorites. I’ll pick. You decide.

 I’ve written posts on many topics, topics which piqued my interest. Most topics originated from a book, an essay or an article that I read on the train to and from work. Here are a few posts born out of those many miles on parallel tracks.

 Political Commentary:

 Sally, not to be outdone by the late night comedians, joked when administrations changed hands. There is always a new supply of fodder for the Animal Farm of politics. And, with cogent insight, Sally has shared reflections upon our country’s state of mind.

Obama’s First Christmas Album

The Ebony Calf

 Here goes. Start the bubble machine.

 Politics:

Course Correction Needed: 2012, I’m Shovel Ready 

Human Rights Repository

 

Social Commentary:

Tear Down That Anthropocentricity

Boy, Are You in Trouble!

Label Me “In Christ”

The People of the “White Privilege” Lie

America’s ‘DeValued’ Moral Currency

 

Human Evil (Sally recommends KingdomVenturers blog):

Hell is Empty and All The Devils Are Here”

 

Human Interest:

tête-à-tête

History as Cynicism

 

Poetry:

Resurrection Doesn’t Stop There

The first snow of the year fell last night

How Do You Know Its Christmas?

When I Think of Christmas

Earthquake Day

 

Short Stories: 

Work 

Wild Horses 

Afternoon Aliens

 

Science:

God Saw That It Was Good – All Along (Theistic Evolution)

Envision

God Saw That It Was Good and So Do I

Man-Made Panic: Climate Change & Anti-Industrialism

Climate Apocalyptic-ism & The WannaBe Oppressed

Cooler Heads Will Prevail 

Cartesian Circle

 

Free Market Capitalism/Economics:

The Good News and Capitalism All Under One Tent

Feral Gov’t Debt Limit Explained

A Tale of Two Waitresses

The Taxonomy of The No-Class Warrior’s Obamanomics

Exactly!

Depends On You

Minimum Wage Or The Price We Pay For Stupid

Looking Out for Number One and Finding Zero

 

Book Reviews/Situation Ethics:

Ritual Meet Entropy: A Father’s Story

Crooked Letters Come to Terms Among the Kudzu

 

Education:

Worker Bees, Education Reform and Our Little Ones

Logocentrism

A Landscape With Dragons; Harry Potter and the Paganization of Culture

 

Gender Issues:

The Church and Gender

What’s “Biblical” About It? 

Good Company – He Chooses You

 

Apologetics/Philosophy:

Atheism in Retreat

Alvin Plantinga & atheism’s arguments

Wrestling with God?

Saving Leonardo and Modern Man From Himself

The Faith Based-Materialist Myth & Baron Muchausen

 

Christianity/Character: 

So God Gave Them Up

Enter In His Gates

The Catch of The Day

Pretense, Part 1: A Look at Evil, Pretense and Suffering

Life Lessons I Will Pass On to My Kids

The True Gospel

The Road Less Traveled By – To The Solidification Zone

Beginning to Imagine the Kingdom of God

Exclusion & Embrace in the Garden of Good & Evil

“Doubly Dead and Uprooted” 

“All who are thirsty come”

 

 This is sum of Sally: “That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.” Ecclesiastes 12:13

Resurrection Doesn’t Stop There

white lilies

 

Heaven

 

Beyond “Imagine“,

There, You Are.

 

Before me

Unbound Substantive Reality, The Living Word

Lifted from gilded pages to eternity’s masthead: “Alpha and Omega.”

 

He now walks among us with beard and white gown,

A purple sash hides a pierced side,

He is the only Disfigured One among us,

The walking Redeemed.

 

He is Truth Unfiltered,

Full-Colored, not developed black and white,

Heaven’s Endless Searching Light,

Light once diffused and then restored,

Among prisms of white calla lilies.

 

Heaven,

A hope not disappointed, no longer dot-to-dot discovered, And,

A harvest, garnering displaced ones into

The dancing embrace of the Triune God:

“That where I am, there you may also be.”

 

Beyond “Imagine“,

Here I am ~ a harlot,

My redemption once hanging by a Scarlet Thread,

Now I’m dancing in the streets!

 

Holy, Holy, Holy. Trisagion.

 

Come, Lord Jesus.

 

 

© Sallyparadise.com, 2014, All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

White lilies from www.flowers-magazine.com

Are these real moments real? Friends.

Are these moments real?

Or, are my fleeting thoughts

The bowl to eat from?

 

I am alone, yet

Memories accompany me,

Then, they abandon me for higher ground?

 

Many days I wait for truth

Then truth comes, full fledged

I am unarmed. Tacit.

 

Help me Lord,

My knees are weak,

Weak from wrestling with faith’s strong arm.

 

Where are the friends I knew?

The friends who knew me no matter what?

The friends who knew the conjunction between me AND me?