Quote

The heart of the Bible is not the presentation of history but a font of imagination that hosts a world other than the one in front of us. By “imagination” Brueggemann does not mean “irreal” but quite the opposite. He claims that the world we live in, the world where the empires of man rule, is the parody. All empires are acts of imagination: they present a world that lures humanity into its false hopes and lays claim to our hearts and souls as the unquestioned status quo. Before you know it, you are duped. You take what the world offers–commodities, prejudices, fears, injustices, violence, false gods–and you accept it all as a given. To this tired life, accepted as unquestioned reality, scripture offers another world, another way of being, that is both unsettling and comforting as it stands in prophetic judgment over the empires of the world. Scripture, in other words, is counter-imagination, a “rival eschatology,” as N. T. Wright puts it, to any system that claims “we have now arrived.” Empires do not like the promise of scripture because promise implies the the present is inadequate. Counter-imagination makes empires nervous. Scripture itself demonstrates the clash of empires. Israel’s deliverance from Egypt takes the Israelites from a world of slavery to Pharaoh, where all they do is never enough and they are enslaved to producing “banks” (storehouses) where the king of that empire can keep his excess wealth. God delivers Israel to a world where their God is not a task master but a deliverer and where their world is not defined by “commodities” but by “fidelities” (i.e., the covenant).

3 things that made me happy today

1. going to church and being encouraged to engage in life 2. Seeing the holman's! 3. Going to lunch with Becky and Isaac

Truths I believe about myself

1. There is something wrong with me 2. there is no connection from when I work hard and success 3. I am not living the life I want to live

three things that make me happy 6/29

1. Meeting my new doctor at farm workers 2. Not having the power out at our house when it was out in most of yakima 3. Finally feeling better after over a week of illness

dinner readings

I read from Earnest Hemmingway "A natural history of the dead" and "cross country snow" Stacy read from Pedagogy of the oppressed and "early exposure leads to reductions in egg alergies Soletta free styled a lot of grunts

Vincent moon

Vincent Moon's most autobiographical book, until his last, was the book "Soul of the Fox". It is a book about an author who cuts out his own tongue so he wont be distracted to write.

Names I like

I really like the name fox house, and the league of women shoppers

Depression as preparation

When I am old and gray and dying I hope I will be able to look back at this time of my life for preparation for what is next. I have felt a darkness that is slow, and quiet and moving at the same time that brings me closer to death.

happy 5/24

1. soletta marisol 2. Naomi Wachira 3. Breakfast at sweatbeas with kanzlers

Quote

Prayer is noticing, and often labeling, the worship already happening around you.

Quote

A writer must be a liar and manipulator. She has to believe that words change lives and convince others that her words can change theirs. She cant.

literal verse

I wonder if there is a verse about heaven that we should take literally

economy of heaven 5/19

pillars proverbs vows Vows: 1. Tension 2. community 3. creation 4. Time Evidence of tension in ones life-emotion and action-fight or flight, Evidence of community-do you know and act with your community, do you feel and are influenced by what is happening in the world Evidence of connection with Christ in Creation-creating ourselves. We have maintenance and creation, this focuses on the latter. Time is exercised in RITUAL, Schedule, feasts, Sabbath and rights of passage we read, learn, grow we act sacredness of everything worship comes from awareness of Glory Secular is only from lack of awareness celebration and suffering wrong question What this is not A. A church B. A therapy group C. A club It takes one year of preparation to decide if you want to follow this the rest of your life

Heaven movement

1. What are we for, not what are we against 2. how we have conversation is more important than what 3. we correct each other, don't take ourselves to serious 4. we have to be readers

economy of heaven

I think it should focus at the most simply with the idea of "the world tells us this, heaven tells us we have to do that" Heaven is never naive, but rather idealistic. It is not eden, but the fulfillment of earth. It takes the methods we use here and goes to the furthest step, redeeming everything and every method and everyone. Heaven is not defensive Heaven listens, never dismisses Heaven is not competitive heaven has its priorities right heaven is simple etc

Happy 5/18

1. Happy day with super stace 2. playing with baby soul on my bed-her clawing on my face and screaming 3. getting stuff done

Susan Sontag

I watched the hbo on Susan Sontag, hoping it would inspire me. It didn't quite get there. It made me think that she got where she was by being articulate, unbelievably driven and persistent, not damaged by criticism, great at publicity and never stopping. It makes me sad that she always wanted to be a fiction writer and that is what she was weakest at. I do agree that essays don't pass through time well. I think she wanted more than anything to have something that lasts. Maybe she could have focused on mentoring and changing professors and writers and poets and other change agents. I love the quote at the end of the movie, "people that curious about life have a hard time with death". How do I become more curious?

today

Made eggs and mushrooms dreamed of soletta-trevor lost her then put her on the shelf lots of laundry and dishes finished in cold blood watched ex machina last night-interesting but I don't like the aftertaste decided to not watch american crime anymore-don't like too many of the characters

Spiritual movement

I want to work on a spiritual movement. I don't think it will actually happen, but will be a great thing for me to focus on, getting me off of work and lawsuits and all that stuff. My initial feelings are to not be achurch or anything where you actually gather, but rather a set of vows that one holds that will complement everyone else in your life, like church and work and family life ideas 1. Set of vows 2. set of proverbs The vows would be things that you dedicate to God The proverbs would be methods to live one's life, but not exclusive or everytime Live in curiosity, yet have peace and joy in your heart Make a purposeful place in your daily life to make a "church" questions over answers processes over goals direct conversation over gossip I like the idea that a person would spend a year in prayer, maybe even with periods of purposeful solitude

What made me happy 5/17

1. Decision to focus on becoming a homemaker 2. turning this blog into private and writing all the time 3. baking cookies and making mushrooms

Vincent Moon-myth hunters

in his Thirties Vincent Moon wrote a series of three books about myth hunters. World War 3 was waging for over 50 years and the leaders of the UN were losing hope that mankind could ever live at peace. They ended up sending 3 different people to travel to all the indigenous people to find the story of the world. They had the theory that when they were able to write the story of the world, it would somehow bring peace

Vincent Moon

Vincent Moon did a series of short stories for the new yorker his entire career. He would pick the title of a famous book, like pride and prejudice, and rewrite the plot based off the title. Pride and Prejudice was about the south in 1850. He saw these short stories as an exercise and would write them all in a single setting. The collection of these became some of his favorite works late in his career.

4/28 happy

Ryan: going through what I need to go through Derrick: Robert Durst Suckers! J Gleed: Hope for future job

3 of me

1. Derrick-really miss his feisty, playful side. I have taken a big break from this part of me since being fired 2. J Gleed-The great way to get rid of the expert side of you that was coming up too much is to get humbled. 3. Ryan-I guess this is who has been lately-awkward, striving, wanting more but also depressed and giving up. Yeah, that does feel like Ryan. I had been wondering how to get in touch with Ryan, so what do you know?

Happy 4/22

1. All day reconnecting with baby soul 2. writing again 3. Watching two movies with brother and nephews (furious 6 and american sniper)

baby soul's favorite toy's of today

1. Ruby the catepillar 2. The spot on the floor 3. hedgy the hedgehog 4. picnic table 127. (last place) Sophie the giraffe

Things that are interesting to me right now-what I thought about today

1. Listening to grantland podcasts, especially Rembert Browne-how to join in a conversation 2. Thinking about how depression changes my views, today about dying 3. How to have a different conversation when we review things. No real idea 4. Idealistic about writing poorly 5. Finished Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, excited for next book 6. point-forwards in basketball 7. How home teams cheat in basketball 8. Wondering if I will ever really get into Louis C.K., which all his videos, comedy shows and Louie 9. Fighting/accepting the desire to train my daughter to be a good writer 10. Wondering how I can find a spiritual community that talks

Little Soul's Soul

Little Soul's spirituality is practiced in ritual. Her experiences of God come through the truest, most desperate sacraments. Every feeding is to quench an impossible thirst, every gaze at leaves is a direct praise of the creator, every return of mother is the welcoming smile worthy of the prodigal, every tear is an acknowledgment that something is very undone in this world. She practices these sacraments every day, in full humanity and eternal present-ness. When she lives she can be nothing but love and death and reconciliation and ultimately resurrection. Her most powerful sacrament is her following Christ's commandment to join him in his death and resurrection, which she practices through sleep. To Little Soul, the feeling of tiredness brings the absolute fear of death, the knowledge of the encroaching emptiness and nothing. When her eyes start to droop she both knows that death through sleep is coming and also fights with everything she is to stay alive. She screams, jerks, and tries to throw herself out of my arms, often when her eyes are already half shut. Other times sleep seems to surprise her before she is ready and surrenders before she can even put her hands up, but make no mistake, she still is not happy about it. The kenosis, the self-emptying, does not come easily, because it cannot come from the surface with half-acknowledgements or self aware introspection and false humility. True Self-emptying comes from living in the truth of death and only that true, the presence that what we know and experience and are now has to end. The knowledge of our old life being replaced by a new one, the awareness of Resurrection is never a temptation of not living into the experience of death because she truly does not remember that she will wake. When she screams and grunts and fears sleep, there is nothing I can do to comfort her, because this is her sacrament, this is her joining with Christ, and I can't join her there in her alone-ness, I can only watch as my Little Soul's tears turn to rhythmic engine noises, a noise that seems to come from her belly, and the signal that even though she is surrendering herself to sleep, she isn't going out without a fight. She wants me to know she has lost, but she is still present. Little Soul's daily defeat to sleep prepares her for her ultimate defeat to death. Every night sleep is unity with the Crucifixion and preparation for the resurrection.

Thomas Moore

The last time I got this depressed, no one helped me more than Thomas Moore, especially his book "dark night of the soul." One of the biggest concepts in it is finding and embracing your shadow side that you can only see when you are in the midst of your dark night. What side of me am I not allowing to come out? Who am I underneath all of this? What will rise from these ashes? That is very hopeful to me now, that there is meaning in the hell I am living in. I go through hell to see what is on the other side.

anhedonia

Anhedonia: Loss of the capacity to experience pleasure. The inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences. I don't know if I loose all pleasure, just most of it. But this is even worse for me, because I remove all the things from my life that offer no hope of pleasure. Cleaning, exercise, cooking, social interactions all sound terrible and exhausting, so I don't do them. Eating, sleeping and watching TV, while not nearly as pleasurable, become all of my focus because they offer some hope of removing suffering right away. It is not like I put hope in them, it is that I can't withstand anything else

Why this feels like death?

Since being fired I have been at a very different place, and I am working very hard to embrace it, not run from it. I feel depressed, but it is a situational depression. The hours and days just pass without me really noticing. The longer it goes on, the less I want to be around people. But it also feels like shame, because I thought I was doing well and I didn't want to have to restart at this point in my life. I am embarrassed, especially how I came across in the meeting. I am mad, with this feeling of powerlessness, injustice, and so very disappointed in myself. I am very upset at people at work for not protecting me, but I don't know if they knew what I wanted them to do. I tell myself that I would have made such a mess, talking to HR, calling vps and board members, but I am sure other people wouldn't say that was reasonable. I want my work to fall apart now, but that also doesn't wound fair. So maybe it feels like death because I feel like I have nothing left. I feel too weak to fight for myself, and I am in perpetual binds of inaction. Is there anything I can do? I so want something from administration saying they made a mistake, it feels so undone.

Check In

I was fired on March 24th. It was completely out of the blue and it has been totally surreal. I wake up and it is the first thing I think about. When I fall asleep I have to work so hard to distract myself, mostly by making up college basketball teams in my head. During the day most of my thoughts quickly turn into replaying the conversation I had with HR. I have begged God many times for me to go back to the conversation. Partly because I think if I said something else I wouldn't have gotten fired. But mostly because I wasn't myself in the conversation. I attempted to be candid and honest, but in truth I was scared and weak and cowed in front of two people who held my fate. I couldn't believe it was happening, and that is what I am most ashamed of, that I never slowed down and took control of my own fate. But if I did have the opportunity to go back in time, what would I say? Would I do what my director would have done, which is say very little, be super careful with my words and self protective? Would I be like my wife and not answer anything until I knew exactly what was going on? Or would I speak to the hear and now, note the power differential, the binds they were putting me in, the standard that no one could live up to, the disgust and rolling of their eyes they displayed? I know that wouldn't have gone well, but I am pretty good at it when it happens and would have love to have seen what happened.