Thursday, August 23, 2007

Community building

Jim posts a new blogger. Jim is a community builder. How can one keep up with the multitude of blogs? Follow Jim's posts - he even has a means of remembering the anniversaries of all the great folks of history.

(But like the things that you're liable to read in the bible that ain't nessa-sarily so, don't believe everything you read there.)

Thanks to many others who post their starred items and encourage us. We do have some limited capacity to absorb these pointers.

James Pate begins with a note about knowledge... I had been considering the issues and a note from Kathy at beyond words makes me want to pontificate a bit myself on just what it is that we are searching for in that word 'knowledge'.

A restored Adam said to the LORD God: I could not cover myself from the outside, for you were in me. I accepted your covering. And now I know that you covered me with your very own clothing.

In the limited capacity of our Turing machine, we will go on not knowing many things and forgetting much that we thought we knew - and if grace is true which it is, we will be kept from knowing the things that are good that we did which if we knew would puff us up - but it's not what we know that makes us matter and gives us sense - it's by whom we are known. And I don't mean blogger fame and fortune - but the work, the liturgy, of being known by the one who gave himself for us and clothes us with himself. And if grace is true which it is, we will learn and know things that will be painful to us and if we are true we will take ownership for them and accept them as gift whether of rebuke or responsibility from the one who preceeds and follows us (psalm 23). And the patience worked in us will bear fruit as the namesake of the two - Jim and James - reminds us (James 1:3-4).

May we be 'settled' for long days in the
בֵּית אֱלֹהֵינוּ, בְלֹג יְהוָה כִּי טוֹב

(beyit elohenu - house of our God, blog YHWH - the smile! of the LORD, ki tov - for it is good)

3 comments:

Beyond Words said...

I read that last paragraph several times before I could respond--it is the being known that we are made for--being invited into the self-knowing of the community of the Trinity.

Speaking of matter and sense, Are WE now the house of the Lord?

Thanks you for this phrase: "(beyit elohenu - house of our God, blog YHWH - the smile! of the LORD, ki tov - for it is good)"

Bob MacDonald said...

I 'created' the word blg and then looked it up in my dictionary to find it meant 'smile, or gleam'. I hope it isn't rude or anything. I think the short answer to your question is 'yes'. One could write books on it. Mary Coloe - God Dwells with Us, an exploration of the temple and its feasts in John's Gospel - is one I would recommend.

Beyond Words said...

Perhaps you could expand on this unexpected Hebrew rendition of "blg" in a separate post. The explanation is too good to be underground in the comments.