People talk of love as if we all know what love is. Do you know? I do not. I do not know what love is. Certainly, I have been nourished by the 'love' of others and seen others flourish from my 'love'. But I have also been hurt by the 'love' of others and shamed …
Tag: love
Selfless to selfful
Journal entry from April 2, 2018: I just realized I've been lacking a self. Ever since my Bible translator self, my missionary self, my Christian self, my linguist self, and my cosmologist self all died, I've been without a self! The Knowing I that I AM needs a self to see itself. Without the mirror …
Christ and Narcissus
July 13, 2018 (Tallahassee): Yesterday I watched YouTube videos about emotional abuse and realized how abused I've been and how abusive I've been. Truly, messed up people mess up people. The topic of narcissism especially hit home: a narcissistic person is someone who mortally craves - and develops sophisticated means of acquiring - the approval, …
Led by temptation
April 9, 2017 (Nairobi): What is MEANING? What happens when a word, an event, a life, means? Meaning arises from the relation between one holonic (part-whole) unit to one or more others. And meaning is made possible by syntropy, LOVE, the cohesive force that connects things into assemblies in the first place. A word has …
Wholly fractured
April 9, 2017 (Nairobi): Everything is fractal, everything holarchical. Fractality is holarchy. Holarchy is fractality. Molecular, chemical, cellular, neural, linguistic, and social structures are fractal and holarchical. Like is drawn to like, or repels like. Like is drawn to unlike, or attracts unlike...and new, more complex arrangements emerge. Emergence is the playful, spontaneous, even flirtatious …
Divine lure
February 24, 2017 (Nairobi, Kenya): I am the accursed one. Yesterday I wondered why I lost faith in the Bible while [a Wycliffe colleague of ours] did not. Perhaps it was because he remained embedded in a loving Christian community, while I did not. The spirit of love - syntropy - has the power to …
The Keymaker
July 13, 2016 (Kampala): Reading Bellah's book on the evolution of religion has my mind swirling. He's discussing the appearance first of mimetic culture among our ancestors, followed by mythic culture and the 'drive for conceptual clarification' which may have, in part, fueled the emergence of fully human language. The connections being made in my …
In quantum love
January 21, 2016 (Kampala): Last night we had dinner at Cafe Roma's with G and her friend B. At one point, B was telling us about the Christian books she and G read together. Then she self-consciously and insecurely made the caveat that even though these books aren't 'Bible studies', they are still 'based on …
Sacred sensation
***WARNING*** This post contains sexual themes some may find uncomfortable. December 28, 2015 (Timu): Since reading Sardello's book on Silence, I've been trying out some meditation techniques. Three days ago, I was out on a large rock for my morning quiet time. I closed my eyes and focused my attention on the enveloping silence. I …
(Dis)obedience
November 29, 2015 (Kampala): Yesterday morning we stuck around the Baptist Mission and didn't do much. Then we went to Little Donkey for lunch. From there I walked to Kololo Airstrip to see Pope Francis for my 'spiritual pilgrimage' into Kampala. As it turned out, I did get to see the Pope, but a couple …
