Who Is a Christian?

Thank you, Soren, for some needed cold water in the face:

"When we see someone holding an axe wrong and chopping in such a way that he hits everything but the block of firewood, we do not say, 'What a wrong way for the woodcutter to go about it,' but we say, 'That man is not a woodcutter.'"

     Now for the application. When we see thousands and thousands and millions of Christians whose lives do not resemble in the remotest way what--and this is decisive--the New Testament calls a Christian, is it not tampering with the meaning to talk as one does in no other situation and say: 'What a mediocre way, what a thoroughly inexpressive way these Christians have.' In any other situation would one not say, 'These people are not Christians.' Now be earnest about it and say: We are not Christians. Let this become ordinary language usage and you will have a world transformation."

     ~Soren Kierkegaard, in Provocations

Thunder Thighs

   Girl
   stop
   dissing
   your 
   thunder
   thighs.

   Where
   there's
   thunder

   there's
   lightning.

The Purr

The purr of the cat is the universal hum, the thrum of all stars, mysterious reverberations from a wild and fathomless peace. Do not take this silken grace for granted. Daily cruelty and indifference abounds. Old wounds burned into your bones have smothered your delight. The purr beckons you to release your clench and deeply soak in warm quivering creatureliness. Linger there. Let it softly cradle the tender trembling mammal of your heart.

If manna has a rhythm, it is the purr.

Hues of Silence

Sometimes, in closed-eye silent prayer, colors bloom into view. They might swirl into my field of vision as from a subterranean spring -- or drift in from the edges like a radiant fog, an interstellar cloud gathering form.

This seems to happen after some time, after settling more deeply into the silence. The feeling is of blessing, of spaciousness, of subtle but rich nourishment. A tender gaze from the divine.

The colors are usually lavender-violet-purple tones, and this is why I have chosen these visual themes for Bloggio Divina, although what you see here doesn't really capture the richness of the hues.

In her most famous novel, Alice Walker wrote, "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back."

I confess I am a fool living in the world, a fool for Love. And it is my intention to notice what I see in these fields.