Category: Reading Out Loud
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“Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown”
The music for this song was in the last week’s bulletin I found a few months ago when I was waiting in someone else’s narthex for a meeting to start. I found it again a few minutes ago when I was cleaning off my desk (it’s still “the beginning of the year,” sort of). Thought…
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Does God Lose People the Way People Lose Keys?
Thinking about “being lost” and being “looked for” (as in, car keys): Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, specifically uses the example of keys in talking about what it means for something or someone to be “lost.” As in, ultimately, the concept of “lost souls.” So, in his discussion, when something is “lost” it…
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Close Reading in the Qur’an
Notes on Chapter 2 (“Close Readings, Old and New”) of Michael Birkel, ed. Qur’an in Conversation (Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2014) 33-35.] Mohammad Hassan Khalil unpacks the meaning of the opening line of the Qur’an, the bismillah, rendered into English in various ways, such as “In the name of God, the all-compassionate, the all-merciful.” He…
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Reading for World Religions
This [delightful, but massive] book1 has been on my shelf for at least five years – long past the time it was withdrawn from the Indian market, according to one commentator because it “wasn’t boring enough.” I have managed to read the introduction and chapter one more than once. But it has always gotten set…
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Hidden Knowledge in the Qur’an
Chapter 1 of Qur’an in Conversation (Michael Birkel, ed.) focuses on the theme of “hidden knowledge” or “hidden meaning” in three significant texts: al-Fatihah (the Opening, sura one, which is recited as part of all five of the daily prayers, so it’s at least as familiar in a Muslim context as the Lord’s Prayer is…
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More than one way to read the Qur’an
The purpose of the book is to demonstrate various ways North American Muslim scholars read and interpret the Qur’an. The prevailing image of Muslims in the media tends to be one of exotic but backward people from far away. Islam is portrayed as oppressive of women, intolerant of other faiths, zealous to impose a tyrannical…
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Painfully Timely
This was one of the daily lectionary readings today: There are six things The HOLY ONE hates – no, seven things God detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows…
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On Phenomenology
Phenomenology seeks to explore that which is given to consciousness and in so doing to suspend judgements about subjective existence or non-existence of the objects of consciousness, or more specifically, to suspend judgement about the solutions to this problem posed in the history of philosophy.This suspension of judgement is the phenomenological reduction or “bracketing out”…
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Abundance of Possessions
The kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew 13:44
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Reign of Christ Sunday
The Authority of Christ Almighty God, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and set him above all rule and authority, has given to him all power in heaven and on earth, not only in this age but also in the age to come. (a) God has put all things under the Lordship of Jesus…
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Qohelet has seen it all
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken…
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Sign Language
Here is text from the Book of Order of the PC(USA); W-7.1001 to be precise: The church participates in God’s mission in the world through its ministry and worship. Worship presents the reality of the divine rule which God has promised in Jesus Christ as the final renewal of creation. The worshiping community in its…
Matters of Interpretation 