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Summer
"The story of science and religion since the Middle Ages has been one of estrangement rather than conflict. When the Aristotelian synthesis shattered, science and theology drifted apart, becoming at last disconnected universes of discourse.
Over the last few decades many theologians and some scientists have attempted a new “dialogue of science and religion” in order to end this estrangement. A leading figure in this dialogue has been John Polkinghorne, a respected theoretical particle physicist at Cambridge University who, in the early 1980s, left scientific research in mid-career to become an Anglican clergyman and devote himself to writing on science and theology.
The science-theology dialogue has chiefly dealt with natural theology and such basic issues as the existence of God, the order and intelligibility of the universe, the evidence for design and purpose in nature, and the limitations of a crassly reductionist materialism. It has brought greater understanding and even some agreement among people of diverse backgrounds and concerns, ranging from agnostic seekers to people of traditional faith."
Meet me here for breakfast
At the café on the deck
For the roses are in bloom
And the children are with the Jack’s
You’ve always been my favorite
Of people to share my time
To sit in our jammies, dark roast in hand,
The hours will soar and fly
Oh, the remembrance of another deck
With the ocean as its view
The Chronicle on a Sunday morning
And our marriage just brand new
But this café with the roses,
With a view of trees and birds,
Has the quiet of a foothill morn
And our marriage of nineteen years
This is my favorite spot
With its scenery so rare
There’s nowhere for better coffee
No company more fair
I’d gladly do the work again,
And learn the lessons twice,
To share this morning with you here
As your best friend and your wife.
If intimacy means being open and honest and authentic, so I don't have veils, or I don't have to be defensive or in denial of who I am, that's wonderful. But in our culture, intimacy usually has sexual connotations, with some kind of completion. So I want intimacy because I want more out of life. Very seldom does it have the sense of sacrifice or giving or being vulnerable. Those are two different ways of being intimate. And in our American vocabulary intimacy usually has to do with getting something from the other. That just screws the whole thing up.
It's very dangerous to use the language of the culture to interpret the gospel. Our vocabulary has to be chastened and tested by revelation, by the Scriptures. We've got a pretty good vocabulary and syntax, and we'd better start paying attention to it because the way we grab words here and there to appeal to unbelievers is not very good.
"The growing child-nature gap has profound implications for the future, including the mental, physical and spiritual health of generations to come--and for the earth itself... Ironically, at the very moment when more children than ever before are unplugged from nature, science is finally demonstrating just how important direct contact with the outdoors is to healthy human development."
"It had been difficult for him (Nouwen) at first, he said. Physical touch, affection, and the messiness of caring for an uncoordinated person did not come easily. But he had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us-spiritually uncoordinated, retarded, able to respond with what must seem to God like inarticulate grunts and groans."
"It has always been a peculiarity that human beings seem discontent with what works and feel compelled to change, or 'improve,' what for centuries produced desired results."
"The art of drawing is an act of uncanny coordination between the hand, the eye, and the mind. Each of these is subject to training and habit. For many students, improvement in drawing simply lies in breaking bad habits and replacing them with new and useful ones. For example, what do you think of as you draw? Can you remember? Perhaps your mind wanders. Perhaps you think of nothing at all. If you are like most of us though, you do, from time to time, carry on an internal dialogue as you work. This dialogue will either help or hinder your ability to draw, depending on which of two basic types it is."
"Any view or theory of origins must be held in spite of unsolved problems; proponents of both design and unplanned descent acknowledge this. Such uncertainties are part of the healthy dynamic that drives science. However, without exaggeration, there is impressive and consistent evidence, from each area we have studied, for the view that living things are the product of intelligent design."
Good Company
Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees,
The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line;
And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star
That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine.
The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk
Woke his happy note within me to answer free and fine;
And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke--
Lord, who am I that they should stoop--these holy folk of thine?
--Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960)
The joy of the Lord will be my strength;
I will not falter, I will not faint
He is my Shepherd, I am not afraid
The joy of the Lord is my strength.Twila Paris
"You can be bored by virtually anything if you put your mind to it, or choose not to. You can yawn your way through Don Giovanni or a trip to the Grand Canyon or an afternoon with your dearest friend or a sunset. There are doubtless those who nodded off at the coronation of Napoleon or the trial of Joan of Arc or when Shakespeare appeared at the Globe in Hamlet or Lincoln delivered himself of a few remarks at Gettysburg. The odds are that the Sermon on the Mount had more than a few of the congregation twitchy and glassy-eyed.
To be bored is to turn down cold whatever life happens to be offering you at the moment. It is to cast a jaundiced eye at life in general including most of all your own life. You feel nothing is worth getting excited about because you are yourself not worth getting excited about.
To be bored is a way of making the least of things you often have a sneaking suspicion you need the most."
COVID:2 Collage Four years ago today we all came home for the lock down. Middle school classes conducted by zoom on the deck, college cours...