After 34 days and 1,927 pages (17 plays), I'm ready for a Theology Break. And I just happen to have this book from the library about the Lord's Prayer which I've been meaning to read for some time...and which is due soon and no longer renewable. (Kismet!)
viii + 254 = 262 pages, so this is probably just a week's long walkabout.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,725) April 16, 2025
Read to page 30. It's not easy going, but it is interesting.
"... an analysis of our present world, which evidences a culture that tries to control us by manipulation of words (and, thereby, of reality itself), is essential if we are to pray as Jesus would have us pray—by our lives." (7)
Well...there's a lot to unpack there, isn't there?
And here's a sentence with a razor sharp edge: "We go through our rituals in prayer, hoping thus to control God in order to meet our religious needs." (26)
Day 2 (DDRD 2,726) April 17, 2025
Read to page 50. Tough day. I'm into this book, but it does take a lot of concentration...which means more careful reading, which means more time spent reading. And other stuff. But I think this book is mighty.
"...the only way God can know himself--[is by seeing] his image--in us." Furthermore, "If we don't image God, we can't be known by God." (31) As for the latter, that's pretty close to Bishop Berkeley's esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived), but with an interesting twist: it's not enough just to be; to be perceived by God, one must also exist in such a way as to be in harmony with God...by treating creation (including other human beings) with kindness and love. That, in turn, leads to the first quotation here, in that by perceiving the God likeness in us, God comes to know Himself. To me, that suggests that God is essentially created by our acting in ways that are "like" God.
I like that.
Okay.
In my defense, let me point out that (1) I've always been a bit obsessive / compulsive and (2) 4 of these books are from the library. But I've clearly boarded The Jesus Train...I'll admit it.
This seems to be pretty 🔑 (and clearly someone else thought so, too, as I don't mark up library books):
Pretty scary, too.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,727) April 18, 2025
Read to page 80.
"The cry of the poor must be echoed in our lives. To believe that we can approach God in any other way, especially prayer, without having heard (responded to) the needs of the oppressed is to believe God will hear our needs when we have been deaf to those of his people. Ministry and prayer, then, are based on the common realization that all people stand in need, all people are poor; that if God is to identify with us in prayer we must identify and participate with those who are physically poor and systemically kept poor. "He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor will himself also call and not be heard" (Proverbs 21:13).
And now a few words from Revelation 13:15:
"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."
Does that quotation make my country look like a big butt?
Day 4 (DDRD 2,728) April 19, 2025
Read to page 110.
"Since the basis of participative community rests upon the trust its members invest in each other, to have one's language abused, manipulated, or controlled by those with power creates mistrust. This results in violence." (84)
Welcome to "our" world.
Speaking of our 🌎...
"1 ...the Lord has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away."
Hosea 4:1-7
"I ask you, how can God's love survive in a man who has enough of this world's goods yet closes his part to his brother when he sees him in need?"
1 John 13 -16
There was a pretty long diatribe against abortion. Which is understandable in the context of this being a Catholic thing, of course. But it is so disturbing. Look what's happening in our abortionless world right now: women dying in childbirth unnecessarily, raped women and children being forced to have babies.... Surely no one can believe that is what God wills.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,729) April 20, 2025
Read to page 140.
In the course of discussing the commitment to a search for justice that Christianity requires, Crosby quotes "The Vocation of the Order Today" as saying, "To content ourselves with a purely verbal protest would be sheer hypocrisy." (115)
Day 6 (DDRD 2,730) April 21, 2025
Read to page 170.
Here's a thought which should stop your heart: "I love God only as much as I love my worst enemy." (141)
I spent part of today talking to a friend...in large part about thus book. I don't think I did a very good job of explaining it to her, which made me wonder if I was really grasping it solidly. So I'm going to try to really bear down on the last buts of this book.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,731) April 22, 2025
Read to page 190. Just pooped put today.
According to Father Crosby, in the Northern Cheyenne language the word for "priest" means "white man who stands between us and God " (173) 🔥
Day 8 (DDRD 2,732) April 23, 2025
Read to page 211. Really thought I'd be finishing this off today, but there were too many notes. Mañana.
"The wealth of the United States in the world community is increasing at the expense of the developing nations whose income is growing, but not in proportion. Since these inequities have resulted from the infrastructures, only a conversion of the infrastructures, of the system itself, can make the American reality (and those who are part of it) begin to square with God's will for the whole world and all its people." (206)
Day 9 (DDRD 2,733) April 24, 2025
Read to page 254, The End.
Quote from Luke 16:15: "What man thinks important, God holds in contempt." (214)
I think I'm going to stay on the ♱🚄 for a bit longer.
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