tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post1608280194670344862..comments2010-11-11T12:22:58.489+11:00Comments on Carbon Copy: Are All Semantic Distinctions Just Semantics?Highanddryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00536030299423398163noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-43681119199060011992010-08-04T11:21:36.022+10:002010-08-04T11:21:36.022+10:00I still want, in some way, to maintain some kind o...I still want, in some way, to maintain some kind of responsibility for love. IN this I want to maintain the authenticity of love. It is important for me that when we say that we love, it is really us that is loving. We do not say to someone that I can't love you, but God can (even through me).<br /><br />For me, we are created by God in love, and love is at the very heart of who we are. Thus you do not need to know, or believe in God, to be able to love authentically, but that love is ultimately from God in the act of creation. Thus for us to love God is really us loving, not God loving himself through us. This love is given to us as part of our being, given in love, and given with the freedom that we might not love in return. <br /><br />However, when we know God, when we love God, then we have the privilege of his love enabling us to love more. We find we cannot love, so we ask for help in loving. God, in his graciousness, in his love for us, strengthens, or even transforms the love at the heart of our being to be able to love. It is both us loving from our hearts, and God loving through us. Even by the fact of us asking, or allowing God to love through us, it become authentically our love.<br /><br />AndyAndynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-29487725431627924892010-07-29T12:52:49.945+10:002010-07-29T12:52:49.945+10:00Although I hadn't struggled greatly with your ...Although I hadn't struggled greatly with your first post, I did find this one clearer and I think it's great. For me it is a helpful clarification and not about semantics. I think that people are often chided as being pedantic when I believe it is actually about clear communication and therefore a greater possibility of real understanding. Thanks Phil.Kathnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-54590628276826383682010-07-12T19:31:45.730+10:002010-07-12T19:31:45.730+10:00Thanks Holly, I will need to ponder on this offeri...Thanks Holly, I will need to ponder on this offering for a while...Highanddryhttp://post-cynical.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-18441461272998025252010-07-11T15:24:41.546+10:002010-07-11T15:24:41.546+10:00Hi Phil. Just got back from a 7 day silent Dharma ...Hi Phil. Just got back from a 7 day silent Dharma retreat and so, feeling spacious, thought i might my two (Dharma) cents worth ...well, actually not mine at all, rather a beautiful poem from one of my fave poets, Hafiz. To me this speaks of our (already) imperfect perfection, our already being whole. What relevance it has to your poetic piece, I'm not really sure!! <br /><br />****<br />Now is the time<br /> <br /><br />Now is the time to know<br />That all that you do is sacred.<br />Now, why not consider<br />A lasting truce with yourself and God?<br />Now is the time to understand<br />That all your ideas of right and wrong<br />Were just a child's training wheels<br />To be laid aside<br />When you can finally live<br />with veracity<br />And love.<br /><br />Now is the time for the world to know<br />That every thought and action is sacred.<br />That this is the time<br />For you to compute the impossibility<br />That there is anything<br />But Grace.<br /><br />Now is the season to know<br />That everything you do<br />Is Sacred<br />****<br /><br />Metta,<br />HollyOfficenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-64140386067277867012010-07-05T18:33:55.563+10:002010-07-05T18:33:55.563+10:00Ah, sage like. I would totally agree with your cla...Ah, sage like. I would totally agree with your clarifying statements. That was what I was trying to get at.Highanddryhttp://post-cynical.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-89125981435323952352010-07-05T17:25:04.417+10:002010-07-05T17:25:04.417+10:00There is no small amount of a Barthian-like dialec...There is no small amount of a Barthian-like dialectic here. The wholly other God who becomes revealed to us in Christ; God, transcendant, yet immanent, to put it in the words of the master (St John that is!) 'the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.' The wholly perfect love we in our imperfection experience and participate in through grace. For, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.<br /><br />My question here is in relation to anthropology. I'm not quite sure about, 'Love then, is not beyond us, but the very truth of us.', seems a little vague. Love is the very truth of God. <br /><br />What I would say, continuing on the dialectical road, is that, ironically, we are most fully ourselves, most fully who we are created to be, when we look away from ourselves to Jesus. Also strangely enough, it is in looking away from ourselves to Him that we most fully see ourselves, who we are truly meant to be; 'I am the light of the world.' We are those who are called Christian, called follower of Christ.<br /><br />Perhaps, at least in Christian theology and experience, paradox is not as paradoxical as we think!!<br /><br />Mike EMichael Earlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020991975672713764.post-26745176741476570992010-07-04T00:53:48.207+10:002010-07-04T00:53:48.207+10:00ok...my mind hurts beautifully from that. The know...ok...my mind hurts beautifully from that. The knowing, yep, yep, yep, that's it. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free........free from striving, free from works, free from guilt, free to love purely - free from you self most importantly of all I think. Yes we are accountable/responsible, that's a given. But I'm really loving the otherness idea, I think I get that, I've even experienced that - completely connected, yet in some inexplicable way not really anything to do with me, way beyond me so to speak. glimpses of the divine for certain, so included but how can I claim any of it. Wait, the bit I can claim is the willingness to believe, to trust and to accept the sometimes (exquisitely) painful revealing/knowing/opening up of ones self. Maybe it's like how I grow roses (spent time with them this week so might be an odd analogy but anyway). I do my part (responsibility) - water, feed, prune. But hello, God made the rose, if I had no rosebush (which I can't even begin, in my wildest and most obscure delusion, to imagine how to create) then no amount of responsible garden effort would result in a single bloom, and on top of all that, some utterly neglected rosebushes still bloom. It's so not us - we have our part, but we only have our part - plus it's also why silk roses just don't cut it. Wow, oh wow God, regarding love - and rosebushes - is all I can really say now. Keep it coming Phil, my head is fairly cracked anyway :)Donnanoreply@blogger.com