We watched a travel video of Paris, Normandy and Brittany in my French class on Friday. It was an early '90s discourse in public awkwardness. Complete with a kid running around a castle sporting a mullet. A blond, spiky mullet. Before, during and after the mullet the host used his four words of francais to stiff smiles and lots of head shaking. I was glad when it was over. But boy, did I learn some nifty travel hints.
Not having insurance makes for very expensive doctor's visits. I have to get poked and prodded all over before gaining clearance for this gig I want to do for two years in Africa and geeeeeeze, you'd think I wanted to go to the moon or something. Because it's about that expensive and intensive.
I like looking back over life and seeing how it's all been working together to prepare me for this moment right now. 99.9% of the time I never see it, but lately all sorts of things have been aligning in my mind to let me see how the good, the bad and the not-so-good looking are benefiting me. It's like some sort of rare reward for half-way decent behavior. (Because, let's be honest, I'll never get caught on good behavior.)
I was reading a good book last week (or was it last month?) whatever, this good book had a good quote and I wrote it down. Would you like to see it? OKay, here it is: "Empedocles said that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."That's pretty exciting, isn't it? It's a new spin on an old idea. Or perhaps a really old spin on a not yet born idea... Seeing as how Empedocles lived about 400 years before Christ... but about 1600 years after the Jewish faith was established... hmmmm, which hair to split, which hair will it be?
I like the imagery in the quote that at first attempts to define God and make him a containable entity (by likening him to a cirlce), but then blows that out of the water completely by acknowledging that there is no place he isn't and no border he hasn't crossed. But my favorite is that his "centre is everywhere". Which means he is inside me, he his beside me, he is across the room, he is in all things, he is all things.
And I think when we see it like that, we start treating things differently. I wonder if religion is an opportunity to have a different perspective. Not just one perspective, but different ones that help us see. Because just one perspective isn't going to show us much. As they say, 'there's more than one way to skin a cat.'
Not having insurance makes for very expensive doctor's visits. I have to get poked and prodded all over before gaining clearance for this gig I want to do for two years in Africa and geeeeeeze, you'd think I wanted to go to the moon or something. Because it's about that expensive and intensive.
I like looking back over life and seeing how it's all been working together to prepare me for this moment right now. 99.9% of the time I never see it, but lately all sorts of things have been aligning in my mind to let me see how the good, the bad and the not-so-good looking are benefiting me. It's like some sort of rare reward for half-way decent behavior. (Because, let's be honest, I'll never get caught on good behavior.)
I was reading a good book last week (or was it last month?) whatever, this good book had a good quote and I wrote it down. Would you like to see it? OKay, here it is: "Empedocles said that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."That's pretty exciting, isn't it? It's a new spin on an old idea. Or perhaps a really old spin on a not yet born idea... Seeing as how Empedocles lived about 400 years before Christ... but about 1600 years after the Jewish faith was established... hmmmm, which hair to split, which hair will it be?
I like the imagery in the quote that at first attempts to define God and make him a containable entity (by likening him to a cirlce), but then blows that out of the water completely by acknowledging that there is no place he isn't and no border he hasn't crossed. But my favorite is that his "centre is everywhere". Which means he is inside me, he his beside me, he is across the room, he is in all things, he is all things.
And I think when we see it like that, we start treating things differently. I wonder if religion is an opportunity to have a different perspective. Not just one perspective, but different ones that help us see. Because just one perspective isn't going to show us much. As they say, 'there's more than one way to skin a cat.'
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