Archive for the “thoughtz” category
“It helps if you just TELL me what to think”
by Chris Lorensson on 11 April 2008 with
I’ve been wanting to read Jeremy Stangroom & Ophelia Benson’s Why Truth Matters for about a year now, and I just picked up a copy. They are somehow responsible for the (very interesting) website ButterfliesAndWheels.com, which is worth a read. If their slogan Fighting Fashionable Nonsense isn’t compelling enough for you, then check out LOLcats instead, you geek.
Back on topic– the book is obviously about why truth matters, and while the authors are not (apparently) Christians or religious in any sense, their mission and journey has captured my inadvertent attention. There is one quote I’d like to share, they’ve just finished discussing how truth affects societies at large, and how truth is ‘used’ (rather than sought) by rulers to guide (read: control) their subjects:
What is Wrong With This Picture!?
by CJ Speelman on 7 April 2008 with
First things first, sorry for the generic title to this entry!
The above link points you towards a news story that documents the arrest of a Mother and Son crime ring. They were recently found stealing food from a church and were arrested for burglary and petty theft. As of yet, I am not sure if the Church will be pressing any charges against them.
Polishing the candelabras
by Chris Lorensson on 17 March 2008 with
The wifey and I had a nice chat last night about ‘polished’ church services. We couldn’t help but admit that the flashy lights, slick powerpoints and all-round seeker-friendliness of it all kinda irked us, somehow. But what was it?
The first thing we recognised is that we really do believe that God calls us to be excellent at what we do. Ecclesiastes 9:10 tells us a bit about that, I think. So it’s not inherently the ‘slickness’ that’s necessarily wrong, I think we all know that. That got us to thinking well, what is it that is excellent about church services? We think it’s when the Spirit is moving through something like the worship, preaching and teaching, or even some ministry time. So we think that’s what we, as The Body of Christ, should be seeking in our ‘services’. The Spirit and His leading.
Singeing the Fringes of Friendship Circles
by Chris Lorensson on 27 February 2008 with
Here’s a poem I wrote quite awhile ago, but it’s one of my favourites. Please let me know what you think.
[audio:singeing-the-fringes-of-friendship-circles.mp3]
Wires are splayed – opening rooms in homes.
The records roam like ovens cooking
up love for everyone on love.
Choicelessness rubs with will and makes things hot:
I’m watering down the consequences
by wooing time to tilt in my favor.
I won’t suffer at / it all.
Loneliness. Make time for me; for we’ll be together when I come…
praying for time to be on my side. and for consequences to allow me room.
I won’t suffer at / it all.
Sufferance, suffer me to suffer more for you.
I care about myself more thn’m'love’ll bear to move.
I’ve hastened all the lovers’ hands to hold up high the mood.
In hastening myself to love I make my love come true.(?)
Bearer of your hopes & dreams – I want to worship you,
but I can’t bear to bend or break in times when it would do.
You’re enough for me to love yourself in us.
You’ve become my way of thanking you for love.
You’re truly the love that stands me up –
the way that only patience does –
in singeing the fringes of friendship circles.
Ovens cook up love for everyone.
I hate how time crowds up my space -
singeing the fringes of friendship circles.
I won’t suffer at any time tonight, this place
melts into my space of comfort, closeness and leisure.
Pleasure makes itself home in my heart.
Follow-up to ‘Night Terrors’
by Chris Lorensson on 30 January 2008 with
Continued from they’re called ‘night-terrors’ and Bringing out the worst
More on the spiritual aspect of Night Terrors
In my own mind and from my own personal experience, night terrors are solely spiritual– as I stated before, they’re not because you’re mommy didn’t buy you that bike that one Christmas, and certainly not because your Dad had them and it just runs in the family. (Though there may be some merit to the idea of parents passing down, err, issues. I won’t go there) But I believe that one obvious observation one can make is that they almost exclusively happen to children. Like I said, I had them between about 10 and 16, which is a vulnerable point in life for anyone, and children are simply more vulnerable. Thinking back, actually, night-terrors are not the only type of spiritual experience I had when that age– I also remember general overwhelming senses of fear during the night which would keep me awake for hours, as well as a time where I could have sworn that something grabbed my foot. Laugh if you must, but when you’re that age and that vulnerable it’s anything but funny.
Should Christians adopt Non-Violence?
by Chris Lorensson on 12 January 2008 with
Last night 5 of us were on our way back from dinner. It was my wife and I, another couple and another close friend of our who is pregnant. Let’s call her Beatrix. Very near where a few of us live, a mid-twenties middle-class-looking individual began swinging a grocery back with a bottle of vodka in it at us for no apparent reason. He ended up hitting our pregnant friend in the face causing considerable blood loss and trauma. While Jeff’s wife was taking her home, Jeff and I were making sure the individual wasn’t going to follow them or proceed with any further shenanigans.
mr. wino, and a friend
by John Jensen on 10 December 2007 with
I was sitting in our community gathering this morning, having just finished a wonderful breakfast of toast, eggs, bacon and mushrooms, and as we do each Sunday we began to discuss things that may have had a spiritual impact on our lives the previous week. A young man began to relate to the group an encounter he had with a wino, and the security staff at a night club.
Bringing out the worst
by Chris Lorensson on 8 December 2007 with
I think I realised that this book, The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, is acting like a dude with a torch– exploring the darkest and hidden corners of my mind. Places that are better left alone, because in my experience, if they need to be dealt with (further) God will bring it up as He has been so faithful to do in the past. I’m nearly halfway through, but even so, it’s not that the book explicitly talk about things like night terrors, but it’s everything between the lines that has some invisible power to light that torch.
Though it’s a great read, and an especially interesting story, I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone who’s had a difficult and dark past. I mean that in all seriousness.
they’re called ‘night-terrors’
by Chris Lorensson on 7 December 2007 with
I’m going to do my best at describing this– some of you may have heard of a ‘night-terror’, most of you will probably have not. If you’ve never heard of it, skip over to this WikiPedia article to get caught up really quick.
I had night terrors chronically between the ages of 10 and 16, as far as I can remember. And if there’s anything about them that I am sure about, it’s that they’re Spiritual Experiences– not bloody genetic, like the Wiki says. But the thing I’m most interested in– which correlates with my purpose with poetry– is to attempt to convey the emotion, the feeling of the experience. To those of you who have not, or do not have night-terrors, this may be interesting, but to those of you who have had them or do have them, sorry for bringing it up and continue reading here.
On the outside
One thing the Wiki article got right is the distinct difference of a night-terror from a nightmare, mainly in that you are awake and there usually is no ‘subject’ of a night-terror, but it is based almost solely on emotion. The Wiki articles qualifies this by noting that some sufferers of night-terrors do have subjects, but that it is rare. In my case, I often could correlate mine with a real object– however that object was always existing in my mind– it was never something where I would wake up and be frightened of a thing in my room or a horror film or something. Typically, I would half-wake-up and in a completely uncontrolled fit of fear I would just wander the house aimlessly, sobbing and being terrified. Usually, my mother (or after I moved, stepmother) would wake up and caudle me back to sleep. They would typically last about 20 minutes.
On the inside
Here’s where it starts getting interesting– I distinctly remember not just a sense of terror, but how incredibly irrational it was. I was so terrified I literally could not think clearly at any point, and I think I would just exhaust myself back to sleep. I also vividly remember the feelings, and I have been able to recall them back into my heart, which even at a much older age is terrifying. Another very noteworthy point of my own experience was a distinct sense of detachment from my surroundings. My equilibrium would be off, but it was almost as if I was looking through a fisheye lens or something– everything was distorted. Generally, things would appear much farther away than they were, and it induced a feeling of meaninglessness and inability to re-enter normal life, ever again. And it came upon me like a bag of bricks– instant. Just like that. Instant 100% terror, for no apparent reason.
Maybe more later. I’m sick of thinking about it.
Flippin the Script
by Shiloh Bradshaw on 30 November 2007 with
I was recounting my contemplation of “Who God has called me to be” vs “What God has called me to do” when my pastor started talking about little c (little calling) vs. the Big Calling (Big C). When talking about” calling” we are almost always referring to what God has called us to do while giving little thought to the bigger calling of Who God has called us to be.