“I don’t want to be able to understand everything because it’s way too small and then it becomes way too useful, and then it’s able to be manipulated.” Such good stuff! Indeed I receive that...
While also hoping that you all, in return, might trade up, so to speak, by receiving this addendum/edit:
“...way too small and then it becomes way too useful, and then it’s” fuller, ever unfolding, reality—with all its gloriously unimaginable *desire and delight*—invariably becomes stymied and retarded (literally) in its ever increasing experience and joy!
Where the former ends in defensiveness, or protective “fig leaf” covering, the latter highlights the powerful glory of our naked vulnerability: before and with the God who is, at once, impossible to get our arms around—while also being fully huggable in the flesh.
Hello Dr. Danny. This is Pastor Bill from the podcast. I appreciate your response and thank you for engaging us. I agree with what you wrote for the most part but actually see that what you’re saying is what we were hoping for in our original quote. The quote you “added” is the sense of someone who knows that the things of God are for us and beyond us in ways that engage us and thrill us. Good work!
The point of our first quote is that folks don’t have that excitement about the “beyond” but weaponize their small “useful” understanding and then “gate keep” with it.
While I wouldn’t say it exactly the way you did, I appreciate the conversation and look forward to more of it. I like where you’re at and hope more people see the infinite nature of a God who is also “huggable.” Blessings!
This was really helpful. As someone who has a lot of N.T. Wright books on my shelf and has greatly benefited from his work in the past, but has also experienced some of the frustration you all pointed out...it was great to hear those tensions explained so courteously.
I was reminded of that quote that gets attributed to Luther, even though he almost certainly never said it, about planting an apple tree upon hearing of the end of the world. I always understood that as an acknowledgement that whatever beauty an apple tree may have to us now, the beauty that it will have transfigured in the renewal of all things will be infinitely more than we could ever imagine. Same thing with the metaphor of a caterpillar and butterfly. Except infinitely more so, I suppose :)
Great discussion. I kept waiting for the promised knock down drag out, thankfully that was obscured by a none too [W]rightful mystery as words can express (hommage to Fr. Bill). I have given thought to a changed world, but that's the easy part. What is transformed, transfigured? Or what is? It can only be as God infinite and unknowable. Recently in contemplation I've been brought to a threshold. It seems on one side is life and the other death, the unknown, and with it great fear. I've pulled back to 'life.' Perhaps the other side is into an indescribably sublime mystery of infinite fullness that is also emptiness, and an entrance only knowable as death--and all present here, now. Thank you for these weekly reflections--and music! I welcome the change they invite.
“I don’t want to be able to understand everything because it’s way too small and then it becomes way too useful, and then it’s able to be manipulated.” Such good stuff! Indeed I receive that...
While also hoping that you all, in return, might trade up, so to speak, by receiving this addendum/edit:
“...way too small and then it becomes way too useful, and then it’s” fuller, ever unfolding, reality—with all its gloriously unimaginable *desire and delight*—invariably becomes stymied and retarded (literally) in its ever increasing experience and joy!
Where the former ends in defensiveness, or protective “fig leaf” covering, the latter highlights the powerful glory of our naked vulnerability: before and with the God who is, at once, impossible to get our arms around—while also being fully huggable in the flesh.
Hello Dr. Danny. This is Pastor Bill from the podcast. I appreciate your response and thank you for engaging us. I agree with what you wrote for the most part but actually see that what you’re saying is what we were hoping for in our original quote. The quote you “added” is the sense of someone who knows that the things of God are for us and beyond us in ways that engage us and thrill us. Good work!
The point of our first quote is that folks don’t have that excitement about the “beyond” but weaponize their small “useful” understanding and then “gate keep” with it.
While I wouldn’t say it exactly the way you did, I appreciate the conversation and look forward to more of it. I like where you’re at and hope more people see the infinite nature of a God who is also “huggable.” Blessings!
This was really helpful. As someone who has a lot of N.T. Wright books on my shelf and has greatly benefited from his work in the past, but has also experienced some of the frustration you all pointed out...it was great to hear those tensions explained so courteously.
I was reminded of that quote that gets attributed to Luther, even though he almost certainly never said it, about planting an apple tree upon hearing of the end of the world. I always understood that as an acknowledgement that whatever beauty an apple tree may have to us now, the beauty that it will have transfigured in the renewal of all things will be infinitely more than we could ever imagine. Same thing with the metaphor of a caterpillar and butterfly. Except infinitely more so, I suppose :)
Great discussion. I kept waiting for the promised knock down drag out, thankfully that was obscured by a none too [W]rightful mystery as words can express (hommage to Fr. Bill). I have given thought to a changed world, but that's the easy part. What is transformed, transfigured? Or what is? It can only be as God infinite and unknowable. Recently in contemplation I've been brought to a threshold. It seems on one side is life and the other death, the unknown, and with it great fear. I've pulled back to 'life.' Perhaps the other side is into an indescribably sublime mystery of infinite fullness that is also emptiness, and an entrance only knowable as death--and all present here, now. Thank you for these weekly reflections--and music! I welcome the change they invite.