I am almost done with Lilith by George MacDonald, and I am loving it.  Here are just a few of my favorite quotes so far:

“‘You have no right to make me do things against my will!’

‘when you have a will, you will find that no one can.’”

“The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye.”

“I began to learn that it was impossible to live for oneself even, save in the presence of others–then, alas, fearfuly possible!  Evil was only through good!  Selfishness but a parasite on the tree of life.”

“I saw now that a man alone is but a being that may become a man–that he is but a need, and therefore a possibility.  To be enough for himself, a being must be an eternal, self-existent worm.”

“Love is a fragile thing that  does not scale well.”

-From Culture Making by Andy Crouch.

This is from Crouches chapter on the vary small arenas where cultural creation is possible.  His numbers are 3:12:120.  While I think he is spot on with this observation, I think he could have done more to argue why this is the case rather than simply assert that it is the case is many situations.

Humans are shockingly limited in the scope of their relational capacity yet wonderfully limitless in depth.  Interestingly, I found this same observation from an unlikely source as I studied for Political Science class: “The Founders were profoundly suspicious of popular leadership as a means of soliciting power and sought to establish a forum of leadership that depended on character rather than personality. This is, of course, entirely dependent on a polity that is small enough to allow an individual’s character to be well known.” (From American Government by Matthew Kerbel.)

“You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies–which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world–what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose.”

- from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

I can never quite figure out which side Conrad is on.  I could either hail him as a brother or repudiate his views as an aetheist.  Whatever position he fights for though, he certainly says it well.

“Truth is not a doctrine or a worldview or even a religious experience; it  is certainly not to be found by repeating abstract nouns like justice and  love; it is the man Jesus Christ in whom God was reconciling the world.  The truth is personal, concrete, historical.”

-from The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin.

This is the intitial revelation that opens up worlds of understanding for me as I read Prov. 8, John 1, 1 Cor 2, Col 1, and Eph 1.

Horsetail Falls in Yosemite Valley is selectively backlit by the setting sun.

“This was an amazing spectacle to witness. Happening only two weeks out of the year, the setting sun falls behind the vertical face of El Capitan, selectively lighting this waterfall with its orange sunset light. Gradually growing in intensity and color for the last 5 minutes or so, it was like seeing a narrow strip of lava flowing down the face of El Capitan.”

Natural Firefall (via Jeff Sullivan)

“Born on this date in 1834 in the small village of Aremzyani, in what was then considered Siberia, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev would go on, in 1869, to publish the first periodic table of the chemical elements. Mendeleev used the periodicity he’d observed in the properties of then-known elements to accurately predict many of the properties of germanium, gallium, and scandium, which had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg in 1907, at the age of 72. Element number 101 is named mendelevium in his honor.”

-Via Make

It is the second day of fasting. Often it is said that fasting increases spiritual awareness and focus. I can find no biblical support for this notion and I find that distractions nag at my willing mind as strong and as frequently as ever. Perhaps, however, I am simply more aware of the ways in which the various scintillations that I subject myself to are a siren song making shipwreck of my faith.

Whichever it is, the clear call from God is that I must devote all my attention to him. Only when I am “all ears” will I have the ears to hear.

“The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (via Alan Jacob’s Tumblr)

“When it comes to  cultural creativity, innocence is not a virtue. The more each of us knows  about our cultural domain, the more likely we are to create something new  and worthwhile.”

-From Culture Making, by Any Crouch

As I have been reading Culture Making, this thought has popped up a few times.  The idea that we should root ourselves in the various traditions and skills of the culture around us is an idea that I am somewhat sympathetic to since it encourages us to be excellent in our given fields.  As I read, however, I have trouble thinking up biblical support for this point.  If anything, arguments to the contrary are ready at hand: what of Paul’s condemnation of the excellencies of this world in 1 Cor 1 and 2? What of God’s demand that the people of Israel absolutely destroy all aspects of Canaanite culture?  And yet, what of Augustine’s point that it was not that scriptures that taught him the language by which he can read the scriptures?  Where do we draw the line between continuity and discontinuity with the world around us?

“The ways by which the truth of the gospel comes  home to the heart and conscience of this or that person are always mysterious.   They cannot be programs and they cannot be calculated. But  where a community is living in alert faithfulness, they happen.”

From The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin.

I can just hear Billy’s voice as I read this, urging us to hold the line.  It appears sometimes that there is no one being saved, that we must do something, start some program, trick a few people in.  But there is hope and encouragement in this: “where a community is living in alert faithfulness, they happen.”