COLLECTION OF STORIES TEENS

On humorous book indexes: or, Oliver Crisp strikes again

2011-05-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

Today I received my copy of Oliver Crisp's latest, Retrieving Doctrine: Essays in Reformed Theology (IVP 2011). For an extremely important piece of analytic theology, I refer you to the index:

And again:

It's good to see that I have established a reputation for excellence in my field...

Anyways, I also wrote a blurb for the back cover: "Oliver Crisp argues here for the ongoing vitality of several diverse Reformed traditions. He is drawn to the curious, untidy edges of the Reformed tradition, to unexplored (or forgotten) tensions and problems which the tradition has produced. In the midst of these tensions, Crisp finds new possibilities for contemporary theology." Kevin Hector also blurbs it as "an eminently clear, insightful book." So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Off the Shelf: three more types of reading

2011-05-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

As a sequel to six types of reading, here are another three types. I had also planned to mention Secret Reading, Stolen Reading, Restless Reading, Abortive Reading, Fetishistic Reading, and Travel Reading – but I got frightfully distracted by all the little pressed flowers inside the pages of Dr Johnson. So I might discuss a few more types of reading next time.

Books mentioned in this video:

Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets [1779]
Anne Hunt, The Trinity: Insights from the Mystics (Liturgical Press 2010)
Edward Morgan, Incarnation of the Word: The Theology of Language of Augustine of Hippo (T&T Clark 2010)
Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books (Rowman & Littlefield 2006)

Once more with Rowan and Lulu

2011-05-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, and speaking of children: my recent post on Rowan Williams' letter to six-year-old Lulu was the most popular post I've ever had at F&T. It was shared over 4,000 times on Facebook, and received loads of extra visitors from StumbleUpon. All in all, the post got about 27,000 hits in the first three days – and it's still making its way around Facebook.

I found this very intriguing: I wonder why Rowan's letter struck such a chord with so many people?

Giggly theology: Owen responds to Off the Shelf

2011-05-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

My video on six types of reading has provoked a brilliant and provocative response from one of America's youngest philosophers. Here is Owen, son of R. O. Flyer and grandson of Roger Flyer, subjecting my video to a stringent critical analysis:

I'm especially impressed by the way he bursts into peals of laughter when he hears the name "Chesterton": the word tends to have the same effect on me.

In fact, I once missed out on an important job opportunity simply because the interviewer – the dean of Harvard Divinity School – happened to mention the name of G. K. Chesterton. We sat in the autumnal light of the dean's office, facing one another across a polished mahogany desk beneath the shadow of towering bookshelves and the high baroque majesty of that Ivy League ceiling. "... And that's the real problem with someone like G. K. Chesterton," he said.

I cleared my throat. I shifted in my seat. I felt my nose twitch as I stifled a little giggle. I concentrated all my mental powers on suppressing the shaking that had started somewhere deep in my diaphragm. I wiped a solitary tear from my eye. I breathed.

At last after a few moments I had calmed myself. I coughed politely into my hand, and opened my mouth to make an erudite remark about Catholic thought on distributist economics – when, to my horror, the dean leaned back in his chair, coffee cup in hand, and said the dreadful word again: "Chesterton." All my defences collapsed. It was as though a gigantic hand had seized me by the rib cage and given me a fierce shake. I covered my mouth. I heard a terrific snort. I wiped my eyes and said, "I'm terribly sorry, I do beg your pardon. We were speaking, I believe, of Ches – Ches – Chester –"

And then it happened. The Dean of the Divinity School leapt from his chair as though stung; coffee shot from his cup like a missile and splattered across his lap, across the floor, across the papers on the desk, across my lovingly shined black shoes. For, before I had quite pronounced the name of that immense theological humorist, my lungs seemed to have erupted in a single, tremendous, high-pitched, belching great guffaw, just as if a bewildered donkey had burst into the room. I covered my mouth. I was mortified. I began to apologise, leaning forwards in my seat and scrambling to remove the coffee-sodden papers from the mahogany desk.

Then I heard it again, that terrible sound, that startled guffaw. And before I knew what was happening, I had blurted out the name at last, bellowed it, all in capital letters – "CHESTERTON!" – not so much a name as an air raid siren. And it was only then that I knew it was really too late: I would never get the job, would never hold a position at Harvard Divinity School, would never fulfill my dream of becoming Administrative Assistant to the Dean. For just as Satan fell from heaven, so I had plummeted from my chair on to that luxuriant coffee-stained carpet, and was rolling about the floor in the shrieking grip of a helpless, hilarious, humiliating theological hysteria.

Goyang Dikit

2011-05-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

ketika rumah kemalingan saat di tinggal suami..

di rumah yang baru kemalingan , seorang suami bertanya kepada istrinya :

suami : mah , ada apa ini ?
istri : rumah kita kemalingan pah

dengan kondisi panik , suami melihat ruang keluarga .

suami : apa?!!! TV kita mana ? dicuri ?
istri : iya pah
suami : terus mamah diem juga?
istri : iya pah

terpogoh pogoh dia masuk ke ruang kerjanya..

suami : laptop dan komputer papah mana mah ? dicuri juga ?
istri : iya pah
suami : terus mamah diem juga?
istri : iya pah

setelah paniknya reda , sang suami melihat kondisi rambut istri yang kusut...

suami : terus mamah di perkosa?
istri : iya pah
suami : terus mamah diem lagi?!!
istri : engga pah , goyang dikit

Menyelamatkan 1200 Nyawa

2011-05-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

Catatan Harian Seorang Wanita yang Menyelamatkan nyawa 1200 Penumpang Kapal Mewah dari Bahaya Tenggelam.

Seorang wanita cantik tengah menikmati perjalanannya dalam kapal pesiar. Dia sangat mengagumi kemewahan kapal itu. Baru pertama kali ia melihat kapal seperti itu. Untuk mengenang perjalanannya, dia menulis dalam buku hariannya.

Tanggal 13:
Bukan hari yang sial… namun keberuntungan buatku. Aku bisa. mengenal kapten kapal dan dugaanku benar… Dia sangat gagah dan tampan… Aahh benar2 beruntungnya aku.

Tanggal 14:
Tanpa kuduga, sang kapten mengajakku makan malam dan… alamak dia juga sempat memuji. kecantikanku… Aku jadi tersanjung.

Tanggal 15:
Dia mengajakku makan malam lagi. Sang kapten ternyata nakal juga… dia mulai berani mengajakku bercinta dan menunggu jawabanku besok.

Tanggal 16:
Dia menagih janji… dengan jual mahal kutolak dia (emangnya gue cewek apaan..) eh…, dia malah mengancam akan menenggelamkan kapal beserta 1200 penumpangnya.

Tanggal 17:
Pagi yang cerah… aku bangga bisa menyelamatkan nyawa 1200 penumpang…

Audio lecture: lessons from Augustine's De Trinitate

2011-05-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

Over the past several weeks, my class on the trinity has been working through Augustine's De Trinitate – an immense challenge! Today we reached the great finale of Book 15. So I tried to sum up Augustine's theology of the trinity in a final lecture, outlining a series of brief "lessons from Augustine". I had to record the lecture for some of the students, so I thought I'd also post it here. If you're interested, you can listen below – there are six short parts, each about 10 minutes:

Augustine part 1
Augustine part 2
Augustine part 3
Augustine part 4
Augustine part 5
Augustine part 6

Most countries roof protects primarily against rain with stylistic factors

2011-05-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

A Roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous.

In most countries a roof protects primarily against rain. Depending upon the nature of the building, the roof may also protect against heat,

It doesn't matter what you see

2011-05-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter what you see !! What important is what it is lol

Jacob Taubes: apocalyptic time and the retreat from history

2011-05-05T03:15:00.000-07:00

At this year's AAR panel on Jacob Taubes and Christian Theology, I'll be giving a paper titled "Jacob Taubes: Apocalyptic Time and the Retreat from History". I wrote a paper last year on Taubes' interpretation of Paul; this one will focus more on his recently translated works, Occidental Eschatology and From Cult to Culture. Here's my rather long and rambling abstract:

In his famous theses on history, Walter Benjamin proposed that only a messianic conception of time can burst apart the claustrophobic historicism of modern thought, with its endless cycle of cause and effect. Jacob Taubes’ work was developed against the same backdrop of modern doctrines of homogeneous time; like Benjamin, Taubes wanted to inject the possibility of freedom into the tragic continuum of history.

Taubes sees Nietzsche and Freud as the two great architects of a modern tradition of ‘tragic humanism’, where human actors are utterly imprisoned by fate. ‘There is no hope for redemption from the powers of necessity.’ Taubes largely accepts this post-Christian tragic vision, especially as a corrective to secularised eschatologies of progress. Yet he also advocates a return to the theological conception of time in Jewish and Christian apocalypticism. If time is endless repetition, then the urgency of political commitment is diffused; we are compelled into a situation of ‘decision’ only where the present stands under the shadow of the end. Politics, Taubes thinks, becomes possible only where time is rushing towards this end, and thus where the present is not trapped in a web of repetition, but is a moment of absolute crisis and ‘distress’.

This accounts for Taubes’ lifelong preoccupation with Gnosticism. For him, Gnosticism is a form of non-revolutionary apocalypticism: its doctrine of time locates us within a moment of urgency and decision, while withholding from us any claim to political power, as though we could bring about the end through our own agency. Early Christian apocalypticism is fertile because it yields up not simply a rival politics, but a rival to politics, ‘a critique of the principle of power itself’.

In Taubes’ thought, therefore, a tragic vision of history is set within a wider apocalyptic context – though not in a way that is directly liberating, or that issues in any specific political involvement. Taubes wants to retain the tragic pessimism of Nietzsche and Freud even while relativising it apocalyptically, just as Benjamin relativises historicism not by arguing for the possibility of revolution but by an immense deferral of historical hope, in which history is broken open by the coming messiah.

In this paper I will explore this unresolved tension – so characteristic of modern Jewish thought – between tragedy and expectation, freedom and fate. I will argue that Taubes’ nostalgia for Gnosticism represents an attempt to relieve this tension; but that Gnosticism, with its retreat into an ‘interior apocalypse’, ultimately fails to break the deadlock of modern historicism. Instead I argue that the realism of early Jewish and Christian apocalypticism – a doctrine not about the interior life, but about history – is the only genuine alternative to the tragic fatalism of modern thought.

Kena Tilang Polisi

2011-05-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Pada awal pembicaraan ketika seorang pria ditilang oleh pak polisi :

"Apa salah saya Pak? Saya pake helm, pake jaket, punya SIM, STNK bawa, kenapa saya di tilang ?"
Polisi menjawab " “Sebel aja gw liat lo… muter2 pake jaket dan pake helm tapi nggak pake motor."

Berhenti Merokok

2011-05-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

Arto: apa kamu sudah menghentikan kebiasaan merokokmu itu ?
Ito : sudah 2 bulan saya tidak merokok
Arto: baguslah kalo begitu, tapi asap yang ada dikamar mu ini ?
Ito : oh tenang aja sob, ini bukan asap rokok, tapi cerutu.

Menjadi Dokter

2011-05-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Apa cita-citamu setelah dewasa cu ?" Tanya kakek pada cucunya
"Jadi dokter kek !" Jawab cucunya dengan ringan
"Kalau begitu kakek bisa berobat gratis dong" kata kakek dengan senang
"Tapi kek itu tidak mungkin" Kata cucu dengan enteng
"Loh memangnya kenapa??" sahut kakek
"Sebab saat saya sudah menjadi dokter, pasti Kakek sudah ALMARHUM" sambung cucunya lagi.

Systematic theology job: Geneva

2011-04-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

In his Confessions, Augustine asks the beautiful, aching question: "Do we remember happiness as one who has seen Carthage remembers it?" I have never been to Carthage: but I have been to Lake Geneva.

I mentioned the other day that theologian, historian, and grand amateur de jazz Christophe Chalamet will soon be leaving Fordham for Geneva. Christophe also informs me of a job opening at the University of Geneva's Faculty of Protestant Theology. The position involves working on a doctoral dissertation in systematic theology, as well as working as a theological assistant (e-learning, research support, administration, etc).

The position is nearly full-time (80%), and pays around 50,000 Swiss francs per annum (about 38,000 euros). Applicants must have excellent French-English, a Masters degree or equivalent, and a strong interest in 20th-century and contemporary theology. Further details are available here.

Off the Shelf: six types of reading

2011-04-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

Last time, there were various comments about reading habits. So in this video I provide a typology of six types of reading.

Books mentioned in this video:

Steven Millhauser, The Knife Thrower: And Other Stories (Vintage 1999)
G. K. Chesterton, St Thomas Aquinas [1933], in The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Volume 2: The Everlasting Man, St. Francis of Assisi, St Thomas Aquinas (Ignatius Press 1987)
Michael Jensen, Martyrdom and Identity: The Self on Trial (T&T Clark 2010)
Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford UP 1992)
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (Oxford UP 1933)
G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Belknap 1999)
Augustine Day by Day: Minute Meditations for Every Day Taken from the Writings of Saint Augustine (Catholic Book Publishing 1999)
James Alison, Knowing Jesus (2nd ed; SPCK 1998)

--
And since I've mentioned Chesterton's book on Aquinas, here's a delightful account of how the book was written – this is an excerpt from Dale Ahlquist, G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense (Ignatius Press 2000), chapter 9:

When G. K. Chesterton was commissioned to write a book about St. Thomas Aquinas, even his strongest supporters and greatest admirers were a little worried. But they would have been a lot more worried if they had known how he actually wrote the book.

Chesterton had already written acclaimed studies of Robert Browning, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Chaucer, and St. Francis of Assisi. Nonetheless, there was a great deal of anxiety even among Chesterton's admirers when in 1933 he agreed to take on the Angelic Doctor of the Church, the author of the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Without consulting any texts whatsoever, Chesterton rapidly dictated about half the book to his secretary, Dorothy Collons. Then he suddenly said to her, “I want you to go to London and get me some books.”

“What books?” asked Dorothy.

“I don't know”, said G. K.

So Dorothy did some research and brought back a stack of books on St. Thomas. G. K. flipped through a couple of books in the stack, took a walk in his garden, and then, without ever referring to the books again, proceeded to dictate the rest of his book to Dorothy.

Many years later, when Evelyn Waugh heard this story, he quipped that Chesterton never even read the Summa Theologica, but merely ran his fingers across the binding and absorbed everything in it.

[...] And what kind of book did he write? Étienne Gilson, probably the most highly respected scholar of St. Thomas in the twentieth century, a man who devoted his whole life to studying St. Thomas, had this to say about Chesterton's book: “I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas.”

Menerobos Rambu Lalu Lintas

2011-04-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

Setelah lama ikut Bapaknya jadi sopir metromini, maka sang anak pun sekarang sudah dianggap bisa dan akhirnya bawa metromini sendiri.

Di sebuah rambu lalu lintas dari kejauhan lampu menyala kuning. Sang anak malah menginjak gas dan menerobos lampu merah.

Penumpang: (marah) goblok lu mau cari mati ya!!!
Dijawab sama sopirnya: tenang aja saya sudah diajarin bapak saya, yang penting selamat.

Nah di rambu yang selanjutnya pun demikian. Walau lampu merah tetap diterobos. Nah di rambu ke 5 lampu nyala hijau. Tetapi tiba-tiba rem diinjak mendadak. Penumpang heran dan tanya kenapa lampu hijau berhenti.

Jawabnya: saya takut bapak saya jalan dari arah lain. !!!!!!!!!

Rowan Williams: a letter to a six-year-old

2011-04-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Rowan Williams, I was quite touched by a news story in The Telegraph.

A six-year-old Scottish girl named Lulu wrote a letter to God: “To God, How did you get invented?” Lulu's father, who is not a believer, sent her letter to various church leaders: the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (no reply), and the Scottish Catholics (who sent a theologically complex reply). He also sent it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent the following letter in reply:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected. Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like. But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off. I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

Now that's what I call real theology! Isn't this exactly why we need theological specialists: not to make the faith more complicated and obscure, but to help us grasp how simple it really is?

Rowan Williams: three lectures on Narnia

2011-04-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

This year, Rowan Williams' Holy Week Lectures were devoted to the Narnia stories of C. S. Lewis. The lectures are available online:

Lecture 1: 'Not a tame lion'
Lecture 2: 'I only tell you your own story'
Lecture 3: 'Bigger inside than outside'

When my daughter and I sat down to listen to the first lecture, she turned to me, wide-eyed, and said: 'He even sounds like a character from Narnia!'

Logo Baru CitiBank

2011-04-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

Good Friday sermon: lose your faith

2011-04-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

A sermon by Kim Fabricius (reposted from Holy Week 2008)

There is a lot of twaddle and guff talked during Holy Week. A few years ago I heard a Good Friday sermon – some of you heard it too – in which it was suggested that Jesus, being a carpenter, in order to distract his attention and ease his pain on the cross, may well have admired the quality of its wood. As if our Lord was thinking, “Nice bit of teak this. It’d make a great desk for the study.” It was positively Pythonesque.

No guff and twaddle today. Today I’m going to try to speak shocking, scandalous, scalding truth, say outrageous, even sacrilegious things. You will probably be too polite to heckle or jeer me, but if you walk out on me I shall consider it the highest compliment. I thought of having the elders hand out eggs for to you to throw at me, but pitied the poor cleaners. But eggs are nothing compared to the darts I’m going to fire at you. It’s time to attack your faith, wound it, leave it bleeding, dying, dead – just like the guy on the cross.

Let’s start with some cherished beliefs. For example: that our redemption was achieved by Jesus suffering more horribly than anyone else. But how could we possibly know that? Crucifixion? Yes, a terrible, terrible form of torture and execution. But Jesus’ was only one among thousands and thousands of crucifixions carried out under the so-called Pax Romana – the Roman Peace – when gibbets would stretch for miles down the Apian Way. And the death of Jesus – mercifully swift it was, he expired by mid-afternoon, most usually languished for days. Besides, after the Inquisition, after Auschwitz and the Gulags, after the killing fields in southeast Asia, the tribal slaughter in Rwanda, the mass graves in the Balkans, how can anyone possibly presume to compare national atrocities and personal tragedies, let alone grade them according to some calculus of pain?

For example: that our redemption was achieved by Jesus facing his death more courageously than anyone else. But clearly this is special pleading. And didn’t the first Christians know it – which is why they were hesitant about sensationalising the death of Jesus in terms of martyrdom. As pagans were quick to point out, rather smugly, Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane, and crying out in agony on Calvary, compares rather unfavourably with the great philosopher Socrates on death row, calmly drinking the hemlock as he reminds a friend – his last words – to remember to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius, the god of heath. For Socrates death was the moment of release, for Jesus a time of despair.

And for example: that our redemption was achieved by Jesus dying at the hands of evil men, particularly “the Jews”. What self-serving propaganda! And what a perverse fillip to the church’s long and shameful history of anti-semitism. No, it was not the bestial but the best that killed Jesus. The state in all its glory and religion at its most awesome killed Jesus: not the mob but the upholders of public order, not the wicked but the standard-bearers of morality. Yes, the trial was conducted with unseemly haste and the evidence was selectively marshalled, but the defendant incriminated himself, confessed even, so (if you like) there were no grounds for appeal. For Jesus did undermine a religious system based on law and cult, and Jesus did threaten a political regime based on violence and retribution. Jesus acted with freedom and broke the rules, embracing the dirty, the deviant, and the dangerous. And Jesus prophetically unmasked the mighty pretensions of the local procurator and publicly subverted Caesar’s claim to lordship. Jesus really did force the hands of Caiaphas and Pilate and leave them no choice but to get rid of him. Better that one man die than that the entire social order be at risk – the tried and trusted scapegoat principle. No doubt about it, this peasant troublemaker from up north profoundly threatened the status quo. He had to go.

So: for one Holy Week forget about the suffering of Jesus, the courage of Jesus, the wickedness of it all. Forget even about the dying of Jesus: it is not to the crucifix, or even to the deposition, that I would direct you – no! Rather look at the man – dead – gaze upon the corpse of Christ, fix your eyes on his cold and rigid body, laid out on a slab, already showing signs of decomposition. I am thinking of Hans Holbein’s painting “Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb”. The Russian author Dostoevsky saw the painting, in a museum in Basel, stopping on his way to Geneva, and forever after it haunted him like a nightmare. He describes it in his great novel The Idiot. The character Prince Myshkin says: “Why some people may lose their faith by looking at that picture!”

This sermon doesn’t have three points, it’s got three words: Lose your faith! (I warned you I would be sacrilegious.) Yes, lose your faith. Lose your faith in God. For as the French mystic Simone Weil insisted, there is a kind of atheism that is purifying, cleansing us of idols. Lose your faith in the god that the cross exposes as a no-god, a sham god. Lose your faith in the god who is but the product of your projections, fantasies, wishes, and needs, a security blanket or good-luck charm god. Lose your faith in the god who is there to hold your hand, solve your problems, rescue you from your trials and tribulations, the deus ex machina, literally the “machine god”, wheeled out onto the stage in ancient Greek drama, introduced to the plot artificially to resolve its complications and secure a happy ending. Lose your faith in the god who confers upon you a privileged status that is safe and secure. Lose your faith in the god who promises you health, wealth, fulfilment, and success, who pulls rabbits out of hats. Lose your faith in the god with whom your conscience can be at ease with itself. Lose your faith in the god who, in Dennis Potter’s words, is the bandage, not the wound. Lose your faith in the god who always answers when you pray and comes when you call. Lose your faith in the god who is never hidden, absent, dead, entombed. For the “Father who art in heaven” – this week he is to be found in hell – with his Son.

No one puts it more starkly – or more honestly and truthfully – than Bonhoeffer. We must recognize, he wrote from prison, “that we have to learn to live in the world ‘as if God were not here’. And this is just what we do recognize – before God! God himself compels us to recognize it… God would have us know that we must live as men and women who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us… Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world and onto the cross” – and then down from the cross and into the grave. “He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us.” God a Super-Power? That god is a demon, the Devil. If that god is your Lord, this week is a call for “regime change” (Walter Brueggemann).

So, yes, lose your faith! For as with life, so with faith: only those who lose it will find it. Or rather may find it. Faith is a risk, and discipleship demands that we learn to live with insecurity and uncertainty, setting out on a journey without a map, with companions who are as lost as we are, following a leader who is always way ahead of us, beckoning mysteriously, “Follow me!”, and then vanishing just as we arrive. God is mystery, ineffable mystery, naming a reality that we know, but the more we know, the more we are forced to un-know and rethink everything we thought we knew.

But hang on, Kim, frankly you’ve lost us. We don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever it is, it sounds crazy, foolish. You’ve accomplished the remarkable achievement of making someone like Rowan Williams sound lucid, simple, straightforward. And you’re supposed to be a preacher, and isn’t the whole point of the sermon to make it easier to understand God, to increase our faith, so that we can go back to the world feeling edified, uplifted, and ready to share the Good News? Not today it’s not. Today I can’t help you. This week no one can help you. Come Friday, not even God – especially not God – can help you. And come Saturday, God himself is lying in a tomb. Emptiness. Zero. Nothing. But might it be a pregnant emptiness, a significant zero, a silent nothing that yet says everything? (after Alan E. Lewis). We shall have to wait till Easter. Only then shall we learn that this Week is Holy, and its Friday Good. Only then may we just find a new faith rising from the old faith that I pray you will lose today.

Merokok itu Haram

2011-04-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Ada seorang pemuda yang sedang ngopi di warung dan datanglah seorang teman yang berpakaian rapi menghampirinya.

"Kamu ini masih kuat banget merokoknya. Apa kamu tidak tahu kalau merokok itu sekarang dianggap haram?" temannya yang berpakaian rapi itu bertanya pada Udin.

"Katanya MUI sih begitu” jawab Udin.

"Apa sekarang ini kamu tidak setuju dengan larangan itu?" tanya temannya.

"Lhoo saya setuju itu...saya itu sangat setuju. Bahkan saya sangat setuju kalau pabrik-pabrik rokok itu dibakar saja" jawab Udin dengan penuh meyakinkan.

"Kalau kamu setuju kenapa kamu masih saja rokok?"

"Karena saya tidak mampu membakar pabrik-pabrik rokok itu, maka jalan keluarnya saya bakar rokoknya satu-satu".

ini BOCAH imuttt dan cantik bangett.... udah GEDE bakal jadi REBUTAN !! yakin ane ...

2011-04-22T03:00:00.001-07:00

ini BOCAH imuttt dan cantik bangett....

udah GEDE bakal jadi REBUTAN !! yakin ane ...

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

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SIAPA ya gan ORTU nya ???

:)

sumber:klikunic.com

ini BOCAH imuttt dan cantik bangett.... udah GEDE bakal jadi REBUTAN !! yakin ane ...

2011-04-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

ini BOCAH imuttt dan cantik bangett....

udah GEDE bakal jadi REBUTAN !! yakin ane ...

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SIAPA ya gan ORTU nya ???

:)

sumber:klikunic.com

Cincin Setan Marilyn Manson dan Hyde

2011-04-22T02:35:00.001-07:00

Brian Hugh warner atau dikenal dengan nama Marilyn Manson , salah satu artis/musisi paling kontroversial yang pernah ada, dikenal sebagai seorang musisi yang tidak hanya handal dalam bermusik tetapi juga piawai dalam melukis cat air dimana koleksi lukisannya telah dimiliki figur2 besar di dunia musik macam Ozzy Osbourne, Lisa Presley, Dave Navaro dll. Sebagai hamba Syetan Manson sangat taat dengan keyakinannya, bahkan dia sebarkan ajaran gereja Setannya ke orang2 disekitarnya. gothic adalah trade mark manson sejak kemunculannya make up yang tebal serta korset hitam menjadi kesehariannya, dan tak ketinggalan cincin kuning dengan gambar bintang di jarinya.

Hideto takarai atau dikenal dengan Hyde, dalah satu artis/musisi paling kondang di Jepang dengan band nya L’arc-en-ciel/Laruku (band Asia terbesar di dunia) dia telah menjadi bagian dari sejarah panjang Japanesse Rock di dunia.Tidak hanya handal dalam bernyanyi dan bermusik Hyde juga seorang aktor serta penulis puisi yang berbakat pernah menggarap film bersama gakuto, mantan vokalis Malice Mize, dengan judul Moon Child, serta beberapa film lainnya.Sebagai seorang visual artist, warna rambut yg selalu berubah serta gaya gothic telah menjadi trademark dia ditambah aksesoris rantai2 perak serta tak ketinggalan cincin kuning dengan gambar bintang di jarinya.

Mmmm yang satu ada di Jepang dan yg satu ada di Paris, dan keduanya bahkan seumuran dan memiliki tabiat yg hampir sama, eksentrik, dingin, dan misterius, tetapi kenapa mereka berdua bisa memiliki cincin kesayangan yg sama?

Mungkin mereka waktu masih kecil suka maen bareng? atau itu hadiah karena nabung di Bank swasta? apa sebuah jimat untuk menggapai kesuksesan dan ketenaran? Memang keduanya tidak pernah terang-terangan menceritakan tentang asal muasal cincin berlogo Setan itu, tetapi tidak demikian perkataan seorang Alex streeter, yang mengaku tahu benar asal darimana cincin tersebut.

Kedua cincin tersebut tidak secara kebetulan dipakai kedua vokalis tersebut, tetapi kedua cincin tersebut didesign oleh orang yang sama yaitu Alex streeter sendiri, dia adalah seorang designer accesoris dari logam kelas wahid dari New York, karya dia sudah di kenal dan dipake artis2 kondang macam Axl Rose, Robert De niro, david chen, dll.

Tetapi yang sedikit janggal adalah corak dari cincin Manson dan Hyde adalah identik, seakan akan Alex sudah menyiapkan design tersebut jauh hari sebelumnya, kenapa kalau tau cincin itu telah dipake Hyde (Hyde sudah terlihat memakai cincin tsb di awal kemunculanya di Laruku), Manson masih mau mengenakannya, atau memang benar cincin tersebut bertuah?

Kalau dilihat dari background kepercayaan kedua orang tersebut maka nuansa mistis lah yang mendorong mereka untuk mengenakannya, gambar bintang segi 5 terbalik adalah symbol setan yg paling termasyur. Lagu yang diusung Hyde di Laruku maupun projek solo kerap kali bernuansa mistis, seperti pada album solonya “666″, yang juga merupakan angka keramat setan punya, bagi Manson nuansa mistis sudah dia ekspresikan secara eksplisit dari lirik dan musiknya yang jelas-jelas menentang ajaran agama-agama di bumi.

Belakangan Hyde sudah tidak mengenakan cincin itu lagi dan di album solo terbarunya “FAITH” tampak sosok lain dari Hyde dimana di setiap lagu tersurat kepasrahan akan jalan terang X-Tus. Sedangkan Manson tampaknya masih enjoy dengan gereja setannya walau baru ditinggal istrinya Dita Von Teese ke laut.

sumber :http://terselubung.blogspot.com/2010/02/cincin-setan-marilyn-manson-dan-hyde.html

Cincin Setan Marilyn Manson dan Hyde

2011-04-22T02:35:00.000-07:00