glimpse of the gospel

"Redemption, transformation-- . . . how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?" ~Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Good Squad

glimpse of the gospel

"Philosophers have tried to tell us that all life is a continuous flux--that nothing is permanent but change. But, somehow, the human soul continually reaches out for something permanent, something enduring. We crave solidarity and the eternal in the midst of the all the evidence that everything is elusive and impermanent." ~Ted Shawn

 

glimpse of the gospel

In my Middle Eastern Literature class, we talked about the differences between Disney's Aladdin and the original tale (at least as it was written down by Europeans). [Shocking assignment for an American class on Middle Eastern Literature, I know.]

One of the things we discussed is that Americans don't like boundlessness.

The writers of the film (among maaaaannnnyyyy other things) gave a boundary to Aladdin's wishes. Instead of having an unlimited number of wishes Aladdin is granted only 3 in the Disney version.

We don't like concepts we can't fully comprehend and we don't like power that we don't have some level of control over. (We also don't like characters without internal agency.)

But, God is boundless . . . and that is beautiful.

"‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.'" ~Jeremiah 32:17

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." ~Acts 17:24-25

"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." ~Psalm 90:2

"Thus says the Lord: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.' " ~Isaiah 66:1-2

"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." ~ Colossians 1:17

glimpse of the gospel

"In the older civilizations the questions were of a religious kind, concerned mainly with life hereafter. This world and this life interested them much less. What they principally wanted to know was what the life hereafter was like and what they could do so that their journey to that other world might be a successful one." 

~The Study of Philosophy (p. 17), S. Morris Engel and Agelika Soldan 

Perhaps we've always understood that we were created for another world? 

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” ~Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis