Imbolc and the Snow Moon
Friday gratefuls: Jorge Borge. Herman Hesse. Thomas Mann. Sinclair Lewis. Theodore Dreiser. Goethe. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau. William Cullen Bryant. Dante. Homer. Euripides. Moses. Ovid. Mary Oliver. Coleridge. Wordsworth. Poe. Hawthorne. Cooper Powys. Joanne Greenberg. And so, so many others.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Creativity
Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut. When I rush, slow down. When I want to speak, wait. When my inner agonizer arises, calm him, move on
One brief shining: Said the shema, said my I am comfortable with who I am and what I have, turned on the oxygen concentrator when I heard a crash and then another crash from the space where Shadow was; went back out of the bedroom to find my laptop, my Kindle, various papers, and a bag of treats splayed out on the floor, a shocked Shadow looking sheepish, a little scared. So I picked things up, comforted her, and returned to bed.
Dog Journal: As her comfort level increases, Shadow has become more and more a regular puppy. Chewing up her brand new bed. Trying to get into the treats I left on my computer table. Being bouncy and happy and wiggly. She has learned sit, down, and touch.
She still does things that confound me. When I want her to come in, she stands by the door, won’t come in until I sit down. Often, too, she will run back outside if I get up too fast. When it’s cold outside? Annoying. Like right now for instance.
Having her here when I wake up. When I come home. Glad to see me, tail wagging. Yes. Many times yes.
N.A.R. notes. Wagner did a phenomenological analysis of Christian church growth. He found the most growth in Pentecostal congregations in the third world and mega-churches in the U.S. His conclusion? The holy spirit was at work reshaping the church for a new era.
From within his worldview this was a logical conclusion. Where there are signs of vitality, there is the current activity of God in the world. He also noted that in these new congregations, these gatherings local leaders were the authority. The megachurches, too. Apostles and prophets were the missing elements from denominational governance. Instead of bureaucracy there were charismatic leaders who spoke directly with God and acted in (his) stead.
We will see later how this lead to the powerful, politically motivated Christian Nationalism that we wrestle with today. Wagner’s work I’m discussing now is from the late 1990’s.
Just a moment: I have George Friedman’s The Storm Before the Calm out again. Going to reread his last chapters. The Trump/Musk assault on American norms of the last 80 years may be the storm Friedman predicted. Sure feels like it anyhow. A tearing down of the old paradigm followed by a reshaping. The reshaping will not be the work of the MAGA folks but of a coalition, I would imagine, of the center-right and the center-left, perhaps forming a new political party.